Dark Horizons #43 [2003] (Cosmic Jukebox)

Uarf{ Uortxons
Spring /^Hinme

orixons

‘Highly recommended for
those interested in traditional
super na tura I fiction.

Ell^ Datlow

^ark^ ^orixons

Published by the British Fantasy Society

Issue 43

Spring/Summer 2003
Contents

illustrated b\ Steve Lines

Front Cover

Dies Irae

Paul Garside

illustrated b\ Lara Bandilla

4

Dream Letters

Allen Ashley

Many Colours

Nina Allan

illustrated by Sarah Zama

15

The Forsaken Lover’s Complaint

Marion Pitman

27

A Job for an Angel

Philip Harris

illustrated by Sandra Scholes

28

The Absolutely Socking Stoiy of
Belinda

Tina Rath

35

In the Name Of ...

Mel Cartagena

36

Mist

Angela Rigby

44

My Garden

David J Howe

48

Dark Horizons

— 1 —

www.britishfantasysociety.org.uk

horizons

Edited and produced by
Debbie Bennett

Poetry edited by
Joel Lane

Editorial address

Beech House, Chapel Lane, Moulton
Cheshire CW9 8PQ
debbie@djb.ii-net.coin

Submissions of fiction and poetry (in standard manuscript format) are welcome
at the above address. Please include sufficient return postage, or mark as
disposable - an email address is also helpful for us to acknowledge receipt.
You may also send an SAE for submission guidelines.

All copyright remains with the individual contributors.

To buy back issues of Dark Horizons or other BPS publications,
visit the BPS web site’s on-line shop or send an SAE to:

BFS Publications, 3 Tannvorth Close, Reading RG6 4EQ

To join the BFS, visit the web site, or send an SAE to:

BFS Membership, 201 Reddish Road, Stockport SK5 7HR

To contribute articles and other non-fiction items, visit the web site or email:

m.oregan@virgin.net

Dark Horizons 43 © The British Fantasy Society

Dark Horizons is a non-profit magazine published by the British Fantasy Societ\\ BFS
members receive Dark Horizons as part of their subscription. This publication is sold or
othenvise distributed subject to the condition that it shall not, by mix of trade or otherwise,
be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in
any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published, and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

— 2 —

Dark Horizons

Debbie Bennett

Well, we must be doing something right! No less than 8 stories from Dark
Horizons got an honorary mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Fantasy and
Horror anthology for 2001 . The authors and stories are: PK Grave: Winter Feed,
Christopher Harman: Laughing Matter, Paul Lewis: In Her Eyes and One Last
Wish, Chris Longmuir: The Ghost Train, Loren MacLeod: Children of Fortune,
John Travis: Cuticles and Geoffrey Warburton: Dunn' s Pictures.

Many thanks to Ellen Datlow for her compliments (see cover quote) and for
rating Dark Horizons as 'a wonderful bonus for members of the British Eantasy
Society’. And congratulations to the authors too. Not to mention our artists,
some of whom were nominated for British Fantasy Awards last year.

Steve Lines’ wonderful cover is the first I’ve been able to produce in colour.
Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Thanks also to the rest of our artists and authors for
their valuable contributions. But quality stories are getting thin on the ground.

Has everyone stopped writing for the small
press? I know we don’t pay, but we are a
stepping stone up to the ones who do!

If you want to see more of the BPS, come
along to our annual event FantcisyCon. We’re
in Stafford this year , from 2L’-23“' November
at the Tillington Hall Hotel. You’ll be able to
meet authors, editors and agents in an informal
situation, take part in panels and discussions
and meet friends both old and new. Don’t
worry if you’re on your own - a lot of us
started out that way and we are a friendly
bunch really. Full details on our web site or
email me below.

Hope you enjoy these stories and art.

Debbie

debbie@djb.u-net.com

Dark Horizons

— 3 —

Paul Garside

rae

/ wait.

Sometimes it seems I’ve spent my whole life waiting. It’s as if I’ve just been
biding time until something important happens. What, though, I don’t know.

/ watch and I wait.

I’ve never really felt as if I belong, I suppose. I’ve tried to fit in, tried to be like
everyone else, but I know I’ve just been pretending. I’ve never had a job or a
place to live that has lasted more than a few months. I have no real friends. My
love life, if it can be considered as such, has consisted of no more than casual and
awkward encounters.

I work when I can find work; I spend my evenings in the noisy anonymity of
pubs and bars, trying to believe that I have a life.

Sometimes I just sit and watch people as they talk, as they enjoy themselves.
I watched a woman last night as she stood by the bar, chatting to her friends,
joking and laughing. It was so natural for her. I have never been - could never
be - that relaxed in the company of others. She had no worries, no nagging sense
of difference; she did not fear people as I do. It seemed so unfair.

/ nurture niy hatred.

It’s all to do with memory, I suppose; memory and fear.

I'm sure I was happy, once. I try to remember - I know if I could, it would
all make sense, somehow. But the further back I go, the more my memories seem
to have a bright and glassy fragility, as if they might shatter under too close
scrutiny. That is my greatest fear: that the little certainty I do have is nothing
more than a figment, and might break apart at any moment.

I know there must be more than this. There must. Every so often I find
something that almost awakens memories, almost provokes an understanding; and
yet somehow the revelation always eludes me. It can be anything - the lines of a
building, a voice on the radio, rainbow patterns in an oil-slicked puddle, the
texture of wood beneath my fingers, the aroma of incense - and I am always left
with a profound sense of unease. I don’t know why I find myselt subject to these
strange obsessions; perhaps they are why I still believe tbe world should make
sense, in spite of everything.

They dragged me down from my far heaven. They violated me: they abused me.

— 4 —

Dark Horizons

They told me to break their enemies, and I did so; I gave them the wealth and the
power that they demanded of me; 1 debased myself to fulfil their every whim.

I was sitting in the corner of the pub when the man came in. I’m not really sure
why I noticed him to start with - he wasn’t particularly remarkable, after all; just
another wealthy, middle-aged businessman. I watched him shake the water from
his umbrella and pick his way across to the bar. There was nothing unusual about
him at all.

What was it then that held my attention? I didn’t know. I wondered if I
recognised him from somewhere, but I could not imagine that our paths had ever
crossed before, and I certainly did not know his name. Perhaps it was the nervous
- almost fearful - glance he cast back towards the door that intrigued me. Or
maybe it was the sense of something stirring beneath the surface of memory.

I can’t explain why I chose to follow him when he left.

When they had done with me - when I had done their will - they broke my wings,
castrated me and cast me out into the world.

The man walked back towards the heart of the city and I followed him, keeping a
dozen or so yards behind him but making no real effort to conceal myself. The
wind and the driving rain served to hide me well enough.

After perhaps fifteen minutes - and just as I was beginning to question my
sanity; just as I was about to abandon this stupid, futile pursuit - he turned off of
the busy street and began to pick his way through a maze of alleys and side roads.
I could tell from the odour on the wind that we were nearing the river.

Driven by that same impetus - part curiosity and part obsession - 1 continued
to follow him, though now some vague instinct prompted me to greater caution. I
fell back and kept to the shadows.

And then, as I looked down to step over a foul smelling rivulet, I lost him. I
hurried to the spot where I last seen him and looked around. After a moment’s
inexplicable alarm - why should / be so fascinated by this man. after all? - I
noticed the small door into one of the warehouses. It hung slightly ajar. I slipped
through, into the darkness of the interior.

/ have nurtured my hatred. I have watched my tormentors for all of these years. I
live for the moment of my vengeance.

But I am patient. I wait.

I stumbled over something almost as soon as I had entered, and as my eyes grew
used to the darkness I could see that the place was filled with the hulks of rusting
machinery. There was a smell of neglect, too - I could easily believe it had been
abandoned for decades. As I picked my way forwards through the darkness I
realised that I could see a faint glow near the centre of the warehouse, almost
concealed by the haphazard stacks of detritus. I could hear voices, too, echoing

Dark Horizons

— 5 —

between the dead apparatus. They were too faint for me to work out what was
being said, but there was something in the tones used, perhaps, or maybe just the
voices themselves, that once more stirred up the ghost of a memory.

I found myself torn between this new and alien curiosity, and a growing
sen.se of fear. Though it seemed to be almost against my will to do so, I allowed
the obsession to win. I crept warily forwards.

Finally, after interminable minutes, I came to the centre of the warehouse.
Whereas the rest of the place was ramshackle and cluttered, here the floor had
been cleared to leave an open area perhaps six yards across. A desultory light
came from the few small lamps arrayed at the edges ot the area. At the far side I
could see five men, all well dressed, all in their middle years. Four of them, the
man I had followed included, stood talking and pointing, watching a fifth. It took
me a few moments to work out what this last man was doing, and then I realised.
He was painting a design of some sort on the concrete floor; a circle taking up
almost all of the area and now all but complete. The edge ot it ran within a few
inches of my hiding place.

Then the man straightened, the circle complete. As I huddled there in the
shadows, the others began to move. With a jolt of fear I saw that one was coming
directly towards me. But he stopped, a few yards to my left, and simply stood
there, facing towards the centre of the circle. My puzzlement grew. The others
took up positions around the circle, too. One of them, across from me, stepped
forwards. From the way the other watched him with a kind of deference, I took
him to be their leader. He began to add something to the design, working in slow,
deliberate motions, murmuring something beneath his breath as he did so.

From nowhere came a sudden fragment of memory. I have been here before.
On the heels of the memory rolled a choking sense of panic. I wanted to run, to
escape the place, but it was too late by then. I could do nothing without been
seen, and I feared these men, I realised, with a profound and inexplicable dread. I
was trapped and there was nothing I could do.

Thex are rich men, now. poweifiil men: but they are greedy, too. They are not
satisfied with what they have. They seek to repeat what they did all those years
ago. They wish to prostitute me once more.

Whatever vague notions of terror I entertained, they remained unrealised. The
moment passed and the men returned to the tar side ot the circle once more.

I became convinced that nothing more would happen. The men sat across
from me, occasionally talking to each other in low voices, sometimes pacing to
and fro, but nothing more. I began to consider how I could escape from the place,
wondering if I could sneak back though the gloom unnoticed.

Then a distant bell marked the passing of an hour. As if in response, they
moved to various points of the design again; there were a few moments of activity
as they added lines and symbols to the growing figure, and there were murmured
words I could not fully hear. Then there was silence as they settled to waiting

— 6 —

Dark Horizons

once more.

Perhaps half an hour passed. My fear had settled to a constant dull dread.
My limbs were stiffening to muted agony but I did not dare move - I was certain
they would see me.

Then, for the first time since I arrived, they spoke in normal tones, in words I
could understand:

Tt won’t work, will it?’ one of them said. ‘He won’t come.’

'It, Michael. It, not he,’ replied another, their leader. ‘It’s nothing more than
a tool, remember that.’

‘Whatever. It still won’t work, though, will it?’

‘Be patient. We’re not finished yet. Do you remember nothing of the last
time?’

And after that there was silence again. We all waited.

In the silence I tried to flex my limbs as best I could, but I could do little to
relieve the cramp that slowly burnt into them. Desperate to find something to
draw my thoughts from my discomfort, I studied the pattern they had drawn, or at
least that part of it that ran close to my hiding place. Whatever it was they had
used. to mark out the thing, it glimmered a greasy red in the half-light. Not quite
sure why I did so, I reached out and touched the line. It smeared surprisingly
easily - the stuff was still almost liquid. When I pulled my hand away, it stuck to
my fingers, oily and unpleasant; a hint of decay reached my nostrils, the
suggestion of something old and rancid. I shuddered despite myself and tried to
wipe it off, rubbing my hand against the rough concrete, but in my haste I ended
up smearing the pattern even more. Disgusted, I pulled back further into the
shadows and tried to ignore the stench which now seemed to hang about me.

They used me and broke me and bound me. Now they wish to use me again as
they did before.

But they bound me as a man, and as a man I am no longer fully constrained
by their magics. They hound me as a man, and thus 1 can be as duplicitous as
they.

That is all in the past now. I followed them here; I watched them perform this
unnervingly familiar ceremony; now I wait. I am caught up in the moment just as
they are. I am infected by the same sense of momentous anticipation.

I no longer question my presence here, or wonder why I had chosen to follow
them. It is no longer relevant.

I hear the distant chimes of the bell again - midnight. The leader paces
around the circle once more; at certain points he stops and adds further lines to the
design. He walks right past my hiding place. If I were to reach out, I could touch
his immaculately polished shoe. He walks on. I watch him with a growing sense
of expectation. He draws the final line, speaks the final word, steps back, waits.

I look down at the pattern before me, at tbe scuffed and smeared line. A
thought rises from some unknown depth, from somewhere that is scarcely a part

— 7

Dark Horizons

of me at all - the circle is incomplete.

And then - then - the memories return, the glorious, iridescent memories.
Now I understand; now everything makes sense. I cannot contain my laughter.
‘Who’s there?’ one of them calls, a note of panic in his voice.

I rise from the shadows.

I rise from the shadows.

The form in which I have been bound for all these years falls away.

In their arrogance, in their ignorance, they have summoned me as I truly am,
not as the creature they had made me. They have summoned me just as they
wished, but now we deal on my terms, not theirs.

Their faces are caught in caricatures of shock, of fear, of disbelief. For a
.moment, I revel in their panic. I allow them just enough time to realise what will
happen, to reach an apex of terror. Two of them try to run, but to no avail.

I sweep them all from the face of the earth. At last, I am free.

I rise - glorious, terrible, unbound - into the night.

Len Maynard & Mick Sims

www.inavnard~sims.com

Shadows At Midnight, Echoes Of Darkness,
Incantations, The Secret Geography Of Nightmare,
Selling Dark Miracles, Falling Into Heaven, Moths,
The Hidden Language Of Demons, The Seminar,
Darkness Rising, Enigmatic Press, Shelter.
Michael @micksims.fi).co.iik

Dark Horizons

— 9 —

Hehdonia

December

Dear Karl,

I hope this letter finds you well. I really do. I’m spending a lot of time on my
own thinking about all sorts of things. My brain’s still rich and active even if my
lifestyle is pretty humdrum. Sleep is a rarer commodity. I would claim to be
awake round the clock - or twenty-four seven, as you would say. God, I hate that
expression! — but I know I ve at least briefly visited the lealms of slumber
because I can remember vividly last night’s dream.

I dreamt that you died.

Not of natural causes or as a peaceful Englishman abed. No, in a bizarre,
somewhat self-induced accident.

Looks like Em teasing or toying with you. So what’s new, eh?

Remember that holiday you took in Spain with your mousy little wife and
that annoying apple of your eye daughter? Yeah? And how the coach driver
would take every hairpin bend at top whack even if that meant some of the wheels
were teetering over the precipice whenever he started a tricky manoeuvre?
Passensers teetering, too... But all too, too British to complain aloud although
allowing themselves a sharp intake of breath while they tried to quell the queasy
paella and chips slopping around in their shit-scared stomachs.

You’d only just passed your test then and couldn’t cope with doing more than
forty on a dual carriageway. But you liked to think of yourself as Michael
Schumacher or. better still, Jimmy Dean. Chuck the old bitch, jack in the day job,
buy yourself a Honda or a Harley and blaze through the volcanic plains of the
Spanish islands with a trail of senoritas in your wake.

Such was your dream. Transformed into my dream.

You were still clinging gamely to the low-slung, wide-set handlebars.
Helmeted head over buckle booted heels. A trick cyclist in mid-air, the over-
bright sunlight reflecting off the silver flashes adorning your sweaty black
leathers.

I didn’t see you land. What’s that old chestnut about as long as you wake
before the ground you can’t die when you fall off the dream mountain ? But it was
you falling'not me and, besides, I ought to be in control of my own mountain and
dreams...

Just thought I’d tell you. Hope this letter finds you well.

Your ever loving

Isabella

— 70 —

Dark Horizons

Hebdonia

January

Dear Karl,

My chores here take up a deal of my time but they are just menial and
physical. Yes, I have to keep my wits about me for potential or imagined danger
- what sentient being doesn’t? - but I still have more than enough mental space
left in which to ponder. I don’t sleep deeply, dear Karl. Only the dead have that
privilege. Still I drift down far enough to elicit the dreaming response from my
rapidly atrophying brain.

Again, I dreamt that you died.

Are you much of a fisherman, Karl? No, I suppose not from what I know.

.Unless it’s an interest you’ve developed since I’ve been away. Or rekindled
from childhood. Whatever.

Night. The coast. A beach lit by Land Rover headlights, salt spray cold and
gleaming on the well-trodden pebbles. Just four of you. I didn’t recognise the
other guys - locals, probably, polite but diffident towards this townie and his
expensive rod and tackle. You could smell the wild thrill of the waves, taste
their siren kiss on your fat lips. Choppy, queasy even, but no cause for major
concern. You’d checked the Shipping Forecast. Or at least one of your party
had, you assumed. Maybe the sea dogs were sheep in sou’ westers - secret
landlubbers just like yourself - and didn’t really know their Lundy from their
Fastnet or Finisterre or whatever the hell these places are called.

Finding a comparatively still spot, you arranged the lamps, popped open
flasks and bait boxes, settled to a North Sea nocturne in honour of the great
white whiting. Moby Mullet. King Cod - whoever the hell he was isn’t too
important. Still, you found him soon enough. Or he found you. It was quite
exciting... in an uninvolved computer game sort of way. You wouldn’t let go.
He couldn’t release you.

Fie? No, she - only a female would so cling onto a mostly meaningless life.
You could have admitted defeat, let four hundred quid’s worth of equipment
slap into the waiting waves.

Maybe it wasn’t even your catch that dragged you under. Maybe it was the
rising waters, the unforeseen approaching gale force singling out the petty craft
and one passenger in particular. Probably a combination. It all happened quite
quickly - it was a dream, after all!

Those are pearls that were your eyes. Blue and black. Of your bones are
cod suppers made. Rest well upon the sea bed, dear one.

Your ever loving

Isabella

Dark Horizons

— 11 —

Hebdonia

February

Hey Karl!

Youdl never guess what. No, actually you’re quite smart in your own smug
way so you probably will guess what. That’s right: you, my dream, your death.
Only this time wasn't quite as prosaic as previously, thank God. Less of a
premonition, you might say... unless the five-eyed, purple-skinned Xargs from the
planet Katang G182 have landed and everyone’s neglected to tell me.

Gosh, Fm not being particularly coherent in this missive, am I? And Fm
asking too many rhetorical questions... aren’t I?!

I suppose it was the dream equivalent of a nuclear winter. Dark, gloomy,
doomy. I had more need of a flashlight than that ginger cow in The X Files. Guns,
too - some new-fangled laser anti-alien phaser kill or stun device. If I could
remember how it actually worked I could make some sort ot financial killing
ahead of its sci-fi killing... unless the government or the CIA or the CBI stole the
patent right out from under my pretty little nose.

We were freedom fighters together, you and I. Two amongst many as the
missiles and bombs cratered our world and the mephitic Xargs colonised every
square inch of parkland or museum that we once held dear. And - yes, I admit it,
dear Karl - at a convenient time within the dream it was you I held dear. I don’t
remember you being quite so well endowed in the real world but, embellishments
aside, this was the closest I’d felt to you in years. Real enough, in a way.

Then it was off to battle. Gentlemen in England now abed... sleep well for
tomorrow we die... never has so much and all that jazz.

Corridors, walls crashing down, wave after wave of purple, pustulence-faced,
land grabbing invaders from the other side of this sorry dimension. And you and I
scything our way through them with sword in one hand and space bug swatter in
the other. It was both scary and exhausting - one of those dreams that leaves you
more worn out than a day digging trenches. I must have thrashed the bedclothes
like an epileptic. Two of us together trying to save this wretched planet.

Thinking about it now the whole experience was both as vivid and as
relentlessly illogical as a video game but at the time I was fighting for my life.
Yours, also. Until a squalid tentacle became a pointed spear and you were
suddenly impaled in squirts of scarlet, gurgling, bursting, unplugging. Gone in a
pool of blood and mush.

Maybe I woke then, maybe a little after. Do we dream in colour? Of course
we do. Why would our brains bother with monochrome?

You weren’t a pretty sight, Karl, lying there punctured and lifeless at my feet.

Just thought you should know.

Isabella

— 12 —

Dark Horizons

Hebdonia

March

Dear Karl,

So how are things back in rainy England? It’s still pretty boring and routine
here. I don’t quite know how I cope. Must be the stimulating company... not! I
used to think I could hack it anywhere - mountains, jungles, VSO work, even that
away game at Anfield you once took me to, you old romantic. Of course, that was
back when you cared a little for me, before all the shit hit the fan. Your - what
shall I call it? - yes, your protracted snub set a whole chain of events in motion
which has severely impacted on both our lives. And that of others. One little
domino that you didn’t have to push over, you know. It could all have been so
.different.

Which doesn’t fully explain why your wife and daughter have lately invaded
my dreams of your death. I almost wish you could see inside my mind for a
moment or two, witness that freckly, prematurely grey, saggy old slut you married
and stayed with - yeah, her, wifey! - dancing manically around your coffin. A
cheap looking coffin, more cardboard than cherrywood, more ashtray than ash
wood. You’d grown a moustache - why? It never improves a man’s appearance -
above those deviant lips that once did things to me that no man has before or
since No woman, either, save you asking.

I get it now. Writing all this down makes my stuck in a rut dream somewhat
clearer than when first experienced. I’ve always cast that woman - don’t make me
write her name - as a horrid witch and there she was. Minus any Harry Potter or
Macbeth style black cloak and hat but cackling and scheming nonetheless. She’d
poisoned you. Not with a potion nor with a red / green bipartite fruit. No, a
contagious virus... of the computer sort but crossing over from the cyberworld
into your real world. Neat, eh? It was a dream - my subconscious actually thought
up the idea, not that scabrous harpy!

And there was little Jennie, apple of your myopic eye, stark naked and
underdeveloped for her age but still fondling herself in an unnatural manner.
Warped and impudent rather than sweet and innocent. A mite different from how
I remember her but then I only saw her those two or three times.

And me? Where was I in my own dream? Stuck in observation mode, hiding
in an untidy and slightly stale pile of your laundry that might never get attended
to. I’d have to put up with the socks and the skid marks for the moment, though,
because that angelic little kid of yours had looped a stretch of hangman’s rope
around her arm and was on the search for yours truly. Skipping like a water sprite
- a psychotic water sprite. Singing, "Now for Isabella, hiding in the cellar!”

And you chose them over me. Double Ewe, Aitch, Wye?

Your Isabella

Dark Horizons

— 13 —

Hebdonia

April

Karl, my old mucker,

I used to think I was quite cut out for manual labour - for a girl, anyway -
and probably should have taken up that chance of living on a kibbutz tor a year
when I was nineteen. Now the bastards have taken even that final physical
pleasure away from me. Don’t I deserve better than this pitiful existence? Don’t
bother answering that, Karl. You haven’t answered anything to date so why start
now? And to think of all the love I once felt for you! What a waste of time,
energy and a whole life. More than one if you count that bitch wife I had to get
out of the way and that speccy, know-it-all, Daddy’s girl daughter I never wanted
to be lumbered with. You came with too much baggage, Karl.

They’ve put me on some new programme designed to put me in touch with
my inner self or some such shit. I know they simply take my outpourings and
store them away in a cupboard somewhere but they’re encouraging me to
continue to pour my heart out in these unposted missives and maybe repent and
reform myself away from the base impulses that brought so much hurt and
tragedy into your life and mine.

Like I’m bothered. Freudian fuckwits!

Like I’m going to stop writing to you even now you’re dead. Fell off a
mountain, got zapped by the Xargs or dragged under by Moby Dick’s fat-fmned
grandson, I don't know. At least I can’t be blamed for your death. Not wholly,
anyway.

I never meant for the others to happen, either. That’s what they want me to
say and it’s true to a degree. I never meant much of what I’ve got. Better a
mortuary slab than being stuck here in this freezing cold secure hospital on a
shitty remote Scottish island with only a bunch of butch nurses and loonies in
pinstripe suits and piss-stained pyjamas for company. You might say - if you
could still talk; let’s say for argument’s sake that you can, Karl - you might say
that at least I’ve got a life. But the government’s getting tough with bitches like
me and they’re telling everyone, “Life means Life”. You wanna argue the
semantics, or what?

I’m not much of a believer in heaven and hell, you know. One’s a complete
fabrication and the other’s pretty close to where I’m living right now. The
supernatural is nonsense, too. I’m supposed to worry that your unquiet ghost is
going to come back and you’ll haunt me...

You already do, Karl.

And all those I murdered to try and get you and keep you.

Dream on, my darling. Dream of me... if you can.

Isabella.

— 14 —

Dark Horizons

Nina Allan

"^Qleun

B

The door slammed shut, and he could hear her footsteps running away from them
across the landing and down the stairs. Bryan started forward from his place on
the bed and then let himself sink backwards onto the pillows, as if realising that it
would be futile to try and follow her.

‘Chloe,’ he muttered, as if to himself. Mike turned briefly to look at him, and
then went back to staring out of the window, vaguely wishing that he occupied
another universe. 'She’s gone,’ said Bryan, as if it were only his speaking of these
words that made it true.

’Bummer,’ said Mike, still facing the garden. It was exactly the kind of scene
he hated getting involved in. There was no end to it. It made him feel that he
never wanted to become involved with anyone. At least not seriously.

'Are you scared?’ asked Bryan suddenly.

'Of that crap?’

‘Chloe is.’

'Yes, well, she’s a bird, isn’t she. Birds sometimes fight with other birds. I
reckon she’s just jealous of your grandma.’ Mike sniffed loudly and wiped his
sleeve across his face. 'She’ll be all right.’ He carried on looking out of the
window, waiting to see Chloe emerge from the back door, the door they always
used when they were here, and stalk off across the lawn. There was nothing to see
but the trees, vying for airspace with the vicious sunlight. They were of a green so
stubbornly bright it seemed to blind him.

Bryan stood up and went to join his friend, leaning both elbows against the
sill and letting his chin fall forward into his cupped hands. 'Mum never got on
with her, either,’ he said. Bryan’s mother had died in one of those awful freak
accidents and Bryan didn’t usually talk about her much. The path below them was
still empty. Perhaps Chloe had gone out the front. Mike realised that he wasn’t
sure whether the front door opened or not. He had never seen it used.

Mike actually loved Norah Jarvis’s house, though he had never expressed it
to himself in those terms. It was a place you could escape to. He supposed it had
its weirdnesses, that business with the room that wasn’t always there, for instance,
but it was really no big deal. He replayed Chloe’s words in his mind (‘There’s
something going on here and you two both know it’) and found that there was
nothing he could do with them. He wondered where she would go once she’d got
out. She was a beautiful girl, you couldn’t deny that, but Bry had probably bitten
off more than he could chew, all the same. It just wasn’t worth the aggro.

'She makes you choose,’ said Bryan. His brow was creased with a frown line
that could have meant perplexity or anger. It was often hard to tell exactly what
Bryan was thinking, because he usually kept a calm face on things no matter what

Dark Horizons

— 15 —

was going on.

They all do, mate,’ said Mike. The path down below was still empty, the
trees immobile in the breathless heat ot afternoon. It s one of the things that
defines them."

‘No, not Chloe,’ he said, shaking his head quickly in dismissal ot an
irrelevance. ‘Her. It's always been like that. You’re probably right about Chloe
being jealous, but Gran is more jealous. She’d most likely let her come back,
though, if she wanted to.’ He looked wistful yet resigned, the look of an orphan
boy who is used to things never turning out in his favour. Mike realised with
dismay that he was going to have to engage in this discussion whether he wanted
to or not. Bryan seemed incapable of letting it go. Bloody women, he thought.

“Are you trying to tell me that your grandma's a witch?’ he said, hanging on
to the hope that this suggestion might be greeted with a burst of laughter. What
am I saying, he thought. I must be crazier than both of them put together.

‘I don’t know what she is,’ said Bryan, slowly massaging his forehead with
both hands. ‘All I know is that I’ve always loved her. She’s always been special.
When I was a kid I used to think she looked like a queen.’ He smiled softly to
himself, as if remembering happier times. It was true that Norah Jarvis did have
something queenlike about her. It wasn’t just her outlandish dress sense, all those
Bowery sdk dresses and the rows of beads in triplicate; it was in the whole way
she moved and spoke. If the royal family had someone like Norah at the helm, it
probably wouldn’t be going down the pan the way it seemed to be these days.
Boadicea, thought Mike. That’s who she’s like. Rewarding her knights and
slayins her enemies.

‘Don’t you think we ought to find Chloe?’ he asked, wondering whether such
an action would in fact solve anything.

‘It’s no good, not now. We just have to trust her.’ Mike felt a slight chill go
throush him, knowing that Bryan hadn’t been talking about Chloe. It was Norah
he had meant. ‘It’s a funny thing, trust. Most people would probably say that it
meant feeling safe with someone, feeling protected. I’ve come to believe it’s got
more to do with putting yourself in someone s hands even if you don t feel safe,
even if you’ve got no idea of what they re likely to do next. Sometimes you might
not even know whether they want good things tor you or not.

. Mike liked Norah; she was radically different from any other elderly person
he had ever known. It surprised him to hear Bryan talking about his grandmother,
or anyone, with an emotion that came so close to vindictiveness. He thought of
asking why Judy and Norah had never got on, and then decided against it It was
nothing to do with him.

‘Until I was seven I believed she was some kind of saint,’ Bryan said. ‘It you
asked a shrink he’d probably say I was half in love with her. That all changed, but
even then it sort of didn’t.’

There was a moment’s silence in the room. Mike thought that Norah must be
downstairs somewhere — she hadn t said anything about going out — but there was
no sound of any kind coming from any of the rooms on the lower floor. It was

— /6 —

Dark Horizons

partly the stillness here that Mike so cherished; his own home was always a riot of
disturbances from early morning right through until the small hours. But since
Chloe’s departure he might almost have said that there was something slightly
unnerving about the quiet. It was so total that it sounded as if someone were
listening.

'What changed?’ he asked, conscious only of wanting to make a noise. Bryan
looked directly at him for the first time since the bedroom door had banged shut.
His eyes were of a truly remarkable blue, the eyes of a film star, if Bry had only
had a bit more self awareness.

'I found out what she was like,’ he said. There was a stony quality to his
voice that Mike didn’t think he had heard there before. His eldest brother always
sounded like that when he spoke about his ex-lover Bryony. The bitch had upped
and left with his ex-best mate Mark Chivers. Mike could tell by bis voice that
Steve was still hung up about it.

Tt was on my birthday,’ said Bryan. T was really excited that year because I
knew I was going to get a playstation. Dad didn’t want me to have one, but Mum
was up for it because Jinks Martin had been given one for Christmas. I used to
hear them rowing about it. In the end Dad gave in, because that was what he
always did. I think that was one of the things that used to wind Gran up so much
about Mum.’

Mike wondered briefly why Norah had vented her anger on Judy rather than
on David Jarvis, who had a tendency towards weakness, but then supposed it was
natural to favour your own son even when he was in the wrong. That was what
mother-in-laws were all about, or so he’d heard. ‘Did you get Battle Atlantis?’ he
asked instead.

Bryan grinned. ‘Yes. And Dragonslayer.’ His smile faded abruptly as he
seemed to remember something else. ‘Anyway, Mum had somehow fixed it so
that Gran couldn’t come to my party. I was really upset, until I found out she was
coming on the Saturday instead. I think that Mum just wanted a chance to be able
to run things for a change. Gran did tend to take over.’ He stepped away from the
window and sat down again on the bed, kicking off his trainers and sliding all the
way back to the wall. His hair, damp in the heat, flopped against his brow, half
obscuring his eyes. It made him look younger somehow, and Mike found that he
could easily imagine how Bryan had been at seven years old. Sweet and gentle,
the kind of boy who hardly ever makes any trouble. He wondered whether they’d
have been friends if they’d known each other then. Maybe not, he thought. I was a
right little bastard.

‘It was the first real party I’d had, where I’d been allowed to choose exactly
who could come,’ Bryan continued. ‘I know that Mum hadn’t wanted the Arnos
brothers in the house - Jinks used to call them the Anus brothers - but she didn’t
make a fuss about it when I invited them. She put on a real show. I remember Abe
Goldring threw up in the end because no one could stop him eating. My birthday
cake had all the names of the Chelsea first eleven iced round the sides in blue.’

‘Chelsea? You saddo.’

Dark Horizons

— 17 —

Bryan grinned defiance and threw a mock punch in Mike’s direction before
continuing. ^'But of course Gran had sent a present over. I suppose it was her way
of making sure she was there, even when she wasn t. I can still see the paper it
was wrapped in. I nearly had a heart attack because it was covered in all these
pink roses, you know, like the dresses she wears, real girlie paper there was no
way of hiding. But it smelt of her and it made me feel sate, as it she were hugging
me from a long way off. I would have kept it, if Mum hadn't thrown it away with
the rest of the rubbish. She was so tidy it used to drive Dad crazy sometimes. If
you didn’t put something away the minute you’d finished using it you could end
up losing it forever. He loved her, though, we both did. It was like we could never
keep her safe enough.’

Bryan went quiet for a long moment. Mike couldn’t imagine his own mother
ever knowing how to be dead because she didn’t even have a fair idea of how to
shut up. But Judy Jarvis had most likely not been any different. It was heavy stuff,
the kind of thing he’d really rather not get into.

‘When I finally got the paper off it, I hadn’t a clue what I was supposed to be
lookins: at. It was just this silver tube covered in a lot a gold stars. There was a
sreat lump of red plastic at one end, sort of like the housing for a camera lens. I
shook it and it rattled. I thought I’d somehow managed to break it already, or that
it had sot broken in the post. Then I saw that you were meant to use it like a
telescope - there was a little spyhole in it. But I couldn’t imagine what I was
soins to see, because the other end was blocked otf with red plastic.

kaleidoscope,’ said Mike simply. ‘My sister had one. We used to pretend
it was a telescope whenever we wanted to play Captain Pugwash.

‘That was what it said on the side, in those swirly raised up letters the same
as they use on bowling bags, or pencil cases. But I was still none the wiser
because I had no idea what one was. I’d never seen one before. Do they still make
them, d’you think?’

‘I wouldn’t know, mate. Janice’s got broken when some boftm boyfriend of
hers tried to take it apart. Things are never the same again if you mess about with
them. Steve was always doing things like that, only with him it was bikes.

‘I never saw another one,’ said Bryan, sounding all of a sudden so regretful
that it was as if he were talking about trees, or birds, or the sunset. But I suppose
I wasn’t exactly looking out for them.’ He paused for a moment before going on.
‘When I finally made up my mind to look inside the thing I almost ended up
dropping it right back into the paper it had just come out of. I felt as if there was a
space the size of an entire football ground in front of my eyes. It was like looking
into some other world. I don’t think I’d ever seen colours quite that bright before.’

‘Some trip, huh?’

Bryan smiled his gentle smile but gave no further reaction to the joke. People
like Bryan are special, thought Mike suddenly. They don’t feel any need to cover
things up by laughing at them. He sat down on the flooi and ciossed his legs
under him in a way he hadn’t done since he and his militaiy minded sistei Megan
had taken up the whole of the upstairs floor with one of theii inteiminable and

— /S —

Dark Horizons

highly intense war games. What he wanted now was for his friend to continue
with the story.

'I got the hang of it in the end, turning the red drum to change the colours,
seeing all those tiny chips of light wash themselves away and then turn
themselves back into something else. It was like being the absolute master of my
own private planet. I think if I’d been on my own I’d have probably sat there for
hours, just looking, just seeing if there was an end to any of it. Mum was getting
really worked up, though. Even then, I knew exactly what she was thinking: here
were all the amazing new computer games that she and Dad had bought me, and
there I was head over heels in love with some bit of rubbish my grandmother had
sent in. The way she saw it. Gran had managed to hijack her party after all, like
the wicked fairy in one of those pantomimes. The atmosphere around her got even
worse when she saw that the rest of the lads were dying to get their hands on it.

. Abe was actually trying to snatch it off me - curiosity killed the cat, and all that.
Anyway, she decided that that might be the moment to wheel in the birthday cake,
and that was that. Except it wasn’t, at least not for me.’

No, it wouldn’t have been, thought Mike. He wondered whether there had
been a single other boy in the whole history of post-war Britain who could have
reacted to the gift of a kaleidoscope as if he’d been given the moon. As little as
two years ago he would probably have wanted to laugh out loud at something like
that, at someone like that, but now it made him feel absurdly protective, as if there
were something rich and deep in Bryan that might need shielding from the world.

’Once tea was more or less over, the others all went off to the den for a
playstation tournament. I went too, mainly because I wanted to make sure the
game was set up properly. I suppose I was terrified that one of those heavy
handed Anus brothers might end up breaking something. But it was easy to slip
away once everything was up and running. Most of them didn’t have computers,
not then, and it was like being let loose in Disneyland. I wandered through into
the kitchen to wash my hands. I remember that they were still all sticky from the
cake, and I didn’t like the idea of getting greasy fingerprints all over the
Kaleidoscope. It was so shiny, you see, like a brand new space rocket or
something. Mum had already loaded the dishwasher and was out in the garden,
watering the plants. Dad hadn’t got home from work yet, so I was quite alone.

T went back into the lounge and sat down in the big armchair next to the
front window. I knew that I couldn’t be seen from there, not from the garden and
not from the den. I had the kaleidoscope in my hands and I honestly think I felt
more excited than I had done that morning when Mum and Dad finally let me
unwrap the playstation. Maybe I knew something, even then, even before. I don’t
see how 1 could have done, but it’s all I have that makes any sense of the feelings
I had. I know that Gran would say that it’s because I’m like her really. Different,
you know. Special. I’ve never once discussed it with her but I know that’s what
she’d say. It keeps me awake at night sometimes, worrying that she might be
right. That’s what scares me more than anything.

'The world inside it was still safe, still all there. I think part of me had been

Dark Horizons

— 19 —

afraid that Fd look into that tube and see nothing hut a red blare of plastic. I
remember the first landscape I saw that time was the most amazing golden yellow
covered with spangles of red and orange, like a great African savannah blooming
with poppies. It looked so good I wanted to step right into it and live there
forever. But it was like a drug, that thing. I hadn’t been looking at the yellow
plain for much more than five seconds before I was itching to know what the next
twist of the drum might show me. And the next. In the end I started to get dizzy. It
was like wandering round and round in one of those labyrinths; you think you re
on the verge of finding a way out, that there has to be an end to it all somewhere,
but instead all you get is another series of passages and empty chambers. You
might as well be right back at the beginning. Maybe I was confused, because I
was still at the age when I really believed that everything had to have a point to it,
and that the kaleidoscope would be like one of the game scenarios, progressing up
through a series of levels until you arrived at some kind of resolution, some final
victory. It didn’t occur to me that thee might be some things that didn't make
sense, that went on and on for no reason at all.

'I decided I was going to have to stop it before I went crazy, to just put it
down and go and play some computer games with the others. I remember giving
the barrel one final twist, for luck, and there I was staring into a mud-coloured
canyon of what looked like moon rock. There were great boulders in it that
sparkled - just like that Fool’s Gold stuff, you know, iron pyrites. It scared me a
bit, because it was the first place the kaleidoscope had shown me that I didn’t like.
All the others were like some sort of dreamland; as soon as you saw them you
wanted to be in them. This one reminded me of a film I'd seen once round at
Jinks’s where the entire country had been devastated by some techno-war. Mum
would have killed me if she'd known what we’d been watching. I felt like shaking
the tube really hard, just so I could get rid of the sight of that awful non-place, but
somehow I just kept staring into it like I was hypnotised.

‘All of a sudden there was this flash of green, something moving behind one
of the rock things. It was impossible to miss, because it was the only real colour
you could see in the whole damn place. A green so bright it hurt your eyes. Just
like that I was terrified. I knew it was something awful. I wanted to run away, but
it was as if I had completely forgotten that I was still standing in my own front-
room. What it felt like to me then was that I was really there, in that blazing
valley, with nowhere to hide and something I never wanted to see again coming
straight for me at a full on run.’

Mike became aware that his heart had begun to beat faster, that he was
hugging his knees to his chest as if for protection. What he was hearing was
surely not so very different from the endless round of hideously far-fetched Tales
of the Hook that he and Steve and Jimmy had told each other over and over again
in the dark once one of them had finally decided to turn the light out. There was
no absence of light here, and yet he found himself tense with an anxiety that his
brothers’ stories had almost entirely failed to induce. It’s this place, he thought,
almost angrily. This bloody house, and the fact that every word he's saying is

— 20 —

Dark Horizons

true. He glanced quickly up at his friend, but there was no answering glance of
reply. Bryan sat way back on the bed, his head and shoulders propped against the
back wall and its paper covering of primroses as if he could no longer be bothered
to support his own weight. His eyes were open, and full of that hard, flinty light
that Mike had glimpsed in them earlier. For the first time in their five-year
friendship, Mike felt himself to be, as he was in fact, the younger of the two boys.
The feeling scared him.

Tn another second I was able to see what it was. It was a dragon. I don’t
want you to think that it was like playing Dungeons and Dragons or something. It
wasn’t like looking at a cartoon, or even a picture in a book. The thing was so real
you could almost feel the heat coming off it. Of course from where I was standing
it looked tiny, no bigger than a ground beetle, but that was just because I was
looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. If it ever managed to get out of
, there it would be huge, bigger than any animal I knew existed. It was furious, too,
because it seemed to know that it was being held prisoner. It was going round and
round, like a mad dog in a fenced yard, looking for some way of escape. By then I
was feeling. pretty crazy too. The second I laid eyes on it I’d convinced myself
that if it looked up and caught sight of me that would be it - that would unlock the
door for it somehow. I was sweating and I knew that before long it would be able
to smell me as well as see me, even from the distance of the place it was at. If Abe
hadn’t chosen that moment to start yelling at me, I don’t know how it would have
ended.’

Bryan drew his hands slowly through his hair and then let them fall into his
lap. He entwined his fingers closely together, forcing his palms against each other
like the two halves of a cockle shell. ’What are you thinking?’ he asked suddenly,
turning his face towards Mike so quickly that it was almost an act of aggression.
His blue eyes shone with a brightness that seemed dangerous, like that of the trees
outside.

T just want to know what happened,’ said Mike, because it was the truth. He
hoped fervently that Bryan wouldn’t have to ask whether he believed him or not.
That could end up meaning that they had never really been friends. But Bryan
simply nodded and fixed his eyes on the clasped hands in his lap.

'They wanted me in the den,’ he said. T heard Abe saying something about a
competition, teams of two, best of three. It might have been because they’d been
missing me but most likely they were just a player short. Whatever it was it didn’t
really matter because it meant that I was finally able to take my eyes off that
monster in the tube. Abe’s voice sort of pulled me backwards, back into the room.
I did the first thing I could think of, which was to open one of the sideboard
drawers and push the kaleidoscope in behind a stack of videos, and then turn out
the light. I went through to the den and took my place in the tournament. My
mind must have been a complete blank because I played like a real demon. There
was nothing to get in the way of my reflexes. After a while Mum came in from
the garden and started wrapping up bits of birthday cake for everyone to take
home. Then I went to bed.’

Dark Horizons

— 21 —

‘What did you do with it?’

Bryan smiled a smile that was composed almost entirely of resentment, the
look of a little boy backed into an impossible corner. ‘Took it upstairs, into my
bedroom. In the end, the idea of not being able to see it was worse than the idea of
having it with me. I put it on top of my sock drawers, a little blue chest where I
kept all my t-shirts and underwear. After Mum had been in to say goodnight and
turn out the light I lay there for ages with my eyes wide open, letting them adjust
to the dark. Once everything had stopped being black and became a sort of hazy
grey I could see it quite clearly, standing there on top of those drawers like a sort
of miniature tower. It cast a shadow of itself onto the wall behind, a black oblong
like a door into nowhere. I didn't dare tell myself that I was watching it, but I
suppose that that was what I was doing. In the end I must have drifted off to sleep
because it only seemed to be a moment later that Mum was back in there with me,
pulling the curtains open. There must have been dreams, though, because I felt
like I’d been running all night.’

Bryan shifted on the bed, unlocking his hands and putting them behind his
head. ‘The thing was, although I was scared - very scared - it wasn't that locked-
up, hopeless kind of scared you get when you think you’re completely on your
own with something. Not then. Do you know what I mean ?

Mike nodded silently, thinking of the time when that spaced out moron
Matthew Leatherfield had tried to get him sucked into drug pushing. He hadn’t
known Bryan then. Maybe things would have been diffeient if he had. When

there’s no-one to talk to,’ he said, staring down at his feet.

‘That’s it,’ said Bryan. ‘I was very close to being O.K, because right from the
start I had this complete belief that I wasn’t alone. I was absolutely positive that if
only I could hang on until Gran got there, everything would be alright. She would
know what to do. From the moment I woke up that morning I was counting the
hours until she came. It was as if we were in it together. About that I wasn t
wrong.’ He laughed to himself and Mike thought the sound of it was bitter, the
sound of someone very old regretting the passing of better days. ‘It was Saturday
and she was coming to lunch, you see, so I only had the moining to get through.
By the time I’d got up and dressed and breakfasted it would nearly be time.

‘I wish Fd'been there,’ said Mike suddenly. ‘I mean, it might have been'
better with someone to wait with. As soon as he had spoken Mike felt
overwhelmed by the most complete sense of foolishness he had felt since losing
his way home after football practice when he was eight. But at the same time, he
knew he still meant every word. Bryan’s eyes locked on his and he was horrified
to find that the gratitude he saw in them made him feel like crying. He scrambled
to his feet and resumed his former position, staring non-commitally out ot the
window. The garden shimmered, making itself into a mirage.

‘It was only a couple of hours, but the waiting turned out to be much harder
than I’d thought it would be,’ Bryan’s voice continued in the room behind him. ‘I
tried playing with my computer, but I couldn’t get past Level Three on anything.
Abe would have said I was really shite, especially after the night before. In the

— 22 —

Dark Horizons

*• . f:

end, I just went and sat in the armchair by the window and waited. That was all I
was doing anyway, inside. There didn’t seem much point in pretending anything
else.

Tt was nearly one o'clock before I heard her car coming. I could tell it was
hers from three streets away, just by the sound. She must have had that old blue
Morris for twenty years, because she’d had it as long as I could remember and
she’s only just changed it for the Austin. She loves old things, but while she has
them they manage to stay young. Just like she does, really.

‘Anyway, there was lunch to get through before I could have any hope of talking
to her on my own. Whenever Gran came to lunch it always ended up being like
some sort of gladiatorial contest between her and Mum. Not that much was ever
said, but little^by little this awful tension would build up until it felt like someone
was' going to explode. That time it was all about whose cooking was the best.
Mum had made a lemon meringue pie, and Gran had brought over her own
birthday cake for me. We could have just had one of them at lunch and the other
for tea, but neither of them wanted it that simple. I can’t remember now whether I
got to taste either of them. Dad wormed his way out of it by saying he couldn t
Lat another thing and going off to buy a newspaper. Mum just told me to go and
show Gran my computer while she did the washing up. Normally the secret
fighting would have made me sick to my stomach, but that day I was glad of it.
AW I wanted was to get my grandmother to myself.’

‘They were both using you,’ said Mike. It was something he’d seen and heard
about a million times before, but thankfully never inside his own family. For a
moment he felt incredibly lucky and profoundly aware of something he supposed
he’d always known: that a shortage of money was a long way from being the
worst problem you could have.

‘I know,’ said Bryan. ‘At least, I know that now. But what can you do when
you love two people who hate each other, and both of them so very different? In
the end you’re always forced to choose one side or the other, even if someone has
to die before you’ll do it. And all I could think of that day was that Gran could
help me and Mum couldn’t. Not with something like this.

‘We sat down in the den and I switched on the playstation. Once everything
was set up for Battlestar Galactica I turned the volume right up so that we
couldn’t be overheard. Normally that would have brought Mum bursting m,
telling me to keep it down, but I knew that with Gran there she wouldn t come
into the room unless she absolutely had to. Gran was amazing as usual and just
her being there made me feel like a completely different person. She had one of
her best'dresses on, a silvery white one covered in big pink roses, and a long
string of amber beads that she knew I loved. I sat down on the couch beside her
and fcould smell her perfume, that smell of flowers she always has about her.'

‘Lavender,’ said Mike. One of his own grandmothers had always grown it in
her garden, but she was dead now. Dead at the respectable age of eighty two. He
had no idea how old Norah Jarvis might be.

‘She had a pile of game boxes in her lap and was going through them.

— 24 —

Dark Horizons

reading all the scenarios, trying to suss out which one she liked the look of most.
Whenever she was with me she always made me feel as if whatever we were
doing was the only thing in the world for her. Not even Dad was that interested.
All of a sudden things felt so comfortable, so normal, that I had no idea of what I
was going to say. I even started to doubt what I’d seen. But then my mind flashed
back to the metallic scales, like a sort of emerald chain mail, and the steam that
had been pumping off its sides, and I felt sick all over again. ‘Gran,’ I said, still
not knowing how to start. ‘The kaleidoscope -.’ I broke off then because of the
way she was looking at me. She still had one of the games in her hand, but she
had stopped reading the back of it and was staring at me, her eyes all wide and
blue as if she was about to burst out laughing, as if what I was about to say was
bound to be the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Did you ever read the Jennings
books when you were a kid, or Just William?’

Mike shook his head. It was only in the last couple of years that he’d started
to get into reading. They hadn’t had many books in the house when he was a boy,
but he hadn’t felt the lack of them; he hadn’t been that interested.

‘I used to love those school stories,’ said Bryan. ‘They used to make me feel
as if I had a lot of friends, always getting up to midnight feasts and stuff like that.
Anyway, that was just what Gran looked like: she had this grin on her face that
was just like the one Jennings would have had when he was about to pull some
stunt on Old Wilkie. Not exactly evil, but full of - trouble. Mischief is probably
the word they would have used then. ‘He’s yours now, Bryan,’ she said. ‘That’s
your birthday present. Don’t let him see you though - that might be dangerous.’ I
know that’s exactly how she put it, because I’ve never forgotten a single syllable.’

Bryan’s voice was full of suppressed outrage and Mike found he was glad to
hear it there because it suggested a capacity for survival. ‘What the fuck?’ he said,
already knowing all the answers to whatever the question was he might have
asked.

‘After that she picked up the remote and started playing Galactica,’ said
Bryan. ‘She was blasting ships out of the sky like a full-time professional arcade
junkie. I sat there, mesmerised. It wasn’t until tea was over and she’d gone home
that I realised how completely my world had fallen apart. The first thing to hit me
was that Mum hated Gran because she was frightened of her.’

‘What about you?’

‘I couldn’t bear to be. It would have been the end of everything I loved most
in the world. Once a couple of weeks had gone by I even managed to convince
myself that she’d been joking. I wrapped the kaleidoscope up in a plastic bag and
took it out to this place I knew up behind the recreation ground. I dug a hole and
buried it. I remember thinking that I didn’t care if anyone dug it up because by
then it would be their problem. I went to stay with Gran for two weeks as usual
that Summer and everything was just as it always had been. We played games,
she took me out to wonderful places, she let me sleep in the magic room at night
and never said a word about anything. I had to trust her, you see, because I wasn’t
strong enough not to. I don’t think I ever will be.’ He paused for a moment.

Dark Horizons

— 25 —

almost like a chess player considering his next move. ‘She likes you. Mike. She
always asks after you.'

Mike was silent, thinking about his friend, whom he loved, and who might
just have betrayed him by bringing him here. Bryan wasn’t used to fighting, he
thought. Surviving, maybe, but not fighting. The grass and the trees outside
carried on burning their furiously unwholesome green. Downstairs, somewhere in
the space below them, there was a sudden flurry of disjointed knocks followed by
a steady, rhythmic banging that shook the floor but brought no response from
anyone who might have been occupying the lower storey.

•That's Chloe,' said Mike, having no idea of how he could possibly be so
sure of this but being sure all the same. ‘We'd better go and get her out.’

’If we can.' said Bryan, moving slowly forward off the bed and reaching for
his trainers. "I suppose the least we can do is try.’

The Magazine of
Urban Fantasy
Out Now!

UK: £3.25
Europe: £3.75
USA/Canada: £4.25
RoW: £4.75

www.bradanpress.co.uk

From: Bradan Press, 3 Tamworth Close, Lower Earley, Reading,
Berkshire, RG6 4EQ (UK)

Online ordering facility available.

— 26 —

Dark Horizons

Marion Pitman

The sun has set behind you.

I am turned back against the moon.

The stars stab my brain
with the cold fire of despair.

I thought the sun shone in your hair;
was it the moon behind your eyes?

Will you meet me at the gallows’ foot,
or do you go to your wedding?

Do not go before me.
or tie the noose too tight.

Do not lie out long in the rain,
nor pawn your soul for singing.

Though my eyes are blind with grief.

I will watch for your salvation.

II

Where does the owl drink,
who is it pours her wine?

Where does the fox sleep
with blood on his mouth?

1 am gone into the hare’s shape,
only you can fetch me home.

Ill

Your eyes are ice.
your wide mouth is cruel.

Your voice is in my head
like a sweet sword.

If my blood slaked your thirst
I would not grudge it.

But I have no tongue
to cry against the world.

The knife is twisted in me;

I dare not speak your name

Dark Horizons

27 —

Philip Harris

‘That’s Eric. He used to be an angel.'

The barman looked up at Morgan and laughed as the young solicitor raised
his eyebrows. ‘That's what he says. Up until a couple of months ago he was an
angel.’

‘I still am.’ Evidently the man’s hearing was better than expected. ‘I just
haven’t got a job any more.’

Morgan smiled at the barman. He’d had a hard, and somewhat depressing,
day at work and fancied a little light relief so he wandered across the dusty
floorboards of the bar towards the old man. ‘Is that right?’

‘It certainly is.’ Eric stretched out a hand. ‘I’m Eric Kostaski'.

‘Morgan Hamilton.’ Morgan replied as he shook the old man’s hand,
surprised at the firmness of the grip.

‘Good to meet you Morgan.’

‘So, you’re an angel?’

‘I certainly am. Not one of the famous ones of course. Not like Gabriel or
Lucifer but an angel nonetheless.’

Morgan saw that the man’s glass was empty. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘A ID would be perfect."

Morgan nodded to the barman and he refilled Eric’s glass.

‘You’re a gentleman. A true gentleman.’

‘So what happened? How come you’re no longer an angel?’

Eric shook his head, ‘I am an angel. It’s just I’ve not got ajob any more.'

‘Ah yes, sorry. I forgot.’

Eric stared at Morgan. ‘You don’t believe me, more like.’

Morgan was about to complain but he caught the look in the old mans eyes.
There was a weary sadness there that said he’d been here before but still needed
to tell his story. Morgan didn’t reply.

‘Don’t worry. I don’t need you to believe me. I didn’t become an angel for
fame and fortune.’

‘So why did you become an angel?’

Eric paused, as though he’d never been asked the question, by himself or
anyone else. ‘I’m not entirely sure. It seemed the right thing to do at the time, I
guess. It was a couple of hundred years ago now, I wasn’t keen on coming back to
Earth and there was a lot of demand for new angels so I decided it was the job for
me.’

Morgan frowned, it wasn’t quite how he envisaged the angelic hosts being
chosen, job adverts in Heaven Weekly.

Eric laughed. ‘I recognise that look. It’s not quite what people expect. Not

— 28 —

Dark Horizons

what the preachers and teachers would have you believe. Being an angel is a job,
a bit like any other. You need to be a fundamentally good person of course but it s
not restricted to Holy Joes.’

Morgan smiled. He hadn’t heard the phrase ‘Holy Joe’ since his grandfather

had died. .

‘I was a fishmonger. I used to spend all day ripping the intestines out of fish
then I’d go home and cook fish for my wife and daughters. I pretty much stank of
fish all the time. Not very appealing really. I’m not even that keen on fish.

Morgan sipped his drink. ‘So what happened?

‘How did I die you mean? Everyone always wants to know that. Strange
really. I’d have thought people would be more interested in what heaven is like
but apparently not. I died of loneliness. My daughters moved away. One went to
America, the other one might as well have. My wife developed cancer when she
was 62. It took a year for her to die.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Eric bowed his head and stared into his rapidly emptying glass.

‘I guess it’s around now I'm supposed to say how it was a relief really and
that she'd suffered enough. She had, but I’d have given anything to be able to
spend another day with her.’

Morgan gestured to the barman and he filled both their glasses with a
ueneroLis helping of Jack Daniels.

•Anyway, after she died I pretty much kept myself to myself Five months
later my daughters were weeping over my grave. Feeling hellishly guilty, no
doubt. Me? Twas somewhere else. Purgatory I guess. Wherever it was, it was
dull. Wandering around, waiting for something bad to happen. Kind of like a
hospital. Then one day I just woke up in heaven.’

‘Just like that?’

Eric downed half his drink. ‘Just like that.'

Moraan figured it was going to take a couple more rounds to get through the
entire sto^-y but^it felt good to keep a lonely old man company. He could afford to
treat him to a few drinks and he had a feeling neither of them had much to go
home to.

He asked the question he knew Eric was expecting.

‘A lot like Earth really but much, much, brighter. I don t think it ever rains.
It's always day as well which must be a bit annoying if you're a night person.
Obviously no one ever dies. There are no animals for some reason. No one could
ever explain that one and I always thought it was a bit of a shame.

‘Were you happy?' . ,

'Happy? I guess so. Of course I spent a long time looking for Jennifer hut 1
never did find her. Heaven isn't really organised very well. It's pretty much pot
luck who you get to spend your time with and there's no guarantee you 11 like
them. There's no way of tracking down specific people and as I'm sure you can
imagine there are plenty of people there. At least there was when I arrived.

‘Not any more?’

— .10 —

Dark Horizons

Eric drained the rest of his drink and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Tm
getting ahead of myself.’

‘Another?’

Eric smiled and winked at Morgan. ‘A true gentleman.’

The barman was already waiting with the bottle and Morgan guessed this
wasn’t the first time he’d seen this played out.

Eric grabbed a mouthful of bourbon, rolled it around his mouth and smacked
his lips. ‘I’d been there for what seemed like a long time when I was offered the
angel job. I don’t know how long it had been because time doesn’t really pass in
the same way up there as it does here. It was long enough that I’d given up trying
to tmd Jenny, so it must have been a long time. I thought about it for a while,
there’s never any pressure to do things quickly when you’re dead, and decided
that it was the right thing to do. I was hoping it would give me a bit of purpose.’

‘And did it?’

‘Yes, it did. I wasn’t high up in the angel hierarchy obviously. I didn’t get to
meet anyone famous but I did feel like a worthwhile contributor.’

‘So what does an angel do?’

‘All sorts of things but in my case it was just day to day stuff. Welcoming
new arrivals, making sure they knew the rules. That sort of thing.’

‘There are rules in heaven then?’

‘Of course. Nothing very complicated though. There’s never any violence so
it’s all very minor. No blaspheming, no littering, stuff like that.’

Morgan laughed, ‘I see. I guess everyone who gets into heaven is good
anyway.’

‘Yup, that’s the theory. Everyone’s been pretty good all their life and once
they get to heaven they don’t really feel like changing their ways.’

‘Maybe they’re afraid they’ll get thrown out.’

‘You could be right. I don’t really know. Whatever the reason my job was
pretty straightforward. It passed the time though.’

‘Good pay?’

Eric grinned, ‘No, the work was the reward. Or something. I was a pretty
good angel though. I kept things light-hearted, didn’t moan about my life like
some of the younger angels. I always thought that the last thing you wanted when
you got to Heaven was some angel moaning about how tired they were or how
you couldn’t get a decent drink or how disinterested all the female angels were.’

‘So there’s sex in heaven then?’

‘Oh yes, definitely. It wouldn’t be popular with the men if there wasn’t
would it? Plenty of women as well and when you get to Heaven you return to the
peak of your life, whenever that might be, so everyone’s at their best.’

‘When was that for you?’

‘Twenty nine, two years after I’d met Jenny. I was quite a looker then. Could
have had my pick of any girl I’d wanted I reckon. But I stuck with Jenny and I’m
very glad I did.’

‘Good for you.’

Dark Horizons

— 31 —

‘Don't forget this was a long time ago. People were more loyal in those
days.’

Morgan nodded, his recent indiscretion gnawing at the back of his mind.
Gently though.

‘If your angel job was going so well, what happened?’

‘The world changed.’

Morgan raised his eyebrows.

‘I know. I know. Tm just an old man in bar complaining about how terrible
the world is these days.’

‘That’s not what I was thinking.’

‘Liar.’

‘Angel’s can read minds?'

‘Nope. Old men can read faces.’

The solicitor laughed. ‘Well, it’s true. Old guys have complained about how
things are getting worse ever since stone age women first convinced them to settle
down.'

It was the old man's turn to laugh, his eyes glittering. ‘That's very true, but
that doesn’t make them wrong. The world really is getting worse. At least from
Heaven's point of view.’

‘So why come back?’

‘I was made redundant.’

Morgan tried to conceal the amusement on his face. But failed.

Eric chose to ignore the reaction he was getting, ‘There just weren’t enough
people coming into Heaven to maintain the number of angels we had when I was
there.’

‘But surely there are always new people entering heaven.’

‘Oh yes, but people also leave.’

‘To go where?'

‘Back to Earth.’

‘As in reincarnation?’

‘Basically, yes. You usually come back as a newborn child though - no rats
or worms or anything like that. It’s random who you turn out to be.’

‘So all the previous life stuff hypnotists dig up is true.’

‘Nope. Total rubbish. There're no latent memories. You start with a blank
slate.’

‘And when do you get reincarnated?'

‘Whenever you like. And that’s the problem. There’s always been a constant
stream of people leaving Heaven. They get bored. Can’t find the people they love.
Decide they want to have another go and see if they can make a difference to the
world. All sorts of reasons. The problem is, not enough people are getting back
in.’

‘You mean they’re ending up in Hell?’

‘Yes. Essentially they’re going to Hell. It’s not the Hell you re thinking of
though.’

— 32 —

Dark Horizons

•No?’

'No, Hell is a lot like Heaven really. Just a different class of people. Or so
they say anyway. It’s certainly not the torture-filled, rollercoaster of pain the
church would have you believe.’

'Have you been there?’

'No, and I don’t really want to. Heaven suits me fine.’

"So, let me get this straight, not enough people are entering Heaven to keep
the angels busy?’

'That’s right. The number of people in Heaven is dropping and angels are
losing their jobs. They tried dropping the entry requirements, you can get away
with breaking some of the lesser commandments much more often these days but
there’s only so far they can take that without ruining the atmosphere completely.’

Morgan nodded, amused by the extent of the man’s delusions, ‘That’s
understandable.’

‘There’s even some repentant murderers in there these days although they
tend to be watched very closely and ‘encouraged’ to head back to Earth for
another go.’

‘But even with the relaxed entrance exams there still aren’t enough people.’

Eric nodded, ‘It all boils down to the fact that, on average, people are
rubbish. The majority of people commit too many minor crimes to be let back into
Heaven.’

After the conversations he’d been having at work today, Morgan couldn’t
disagree. ‘So why did you come back?’

Eric shrugged, ‘It’s complicated.’

‘And how come you can remember all this if you’ve been reincarnated?’

‘I wasn’t reincarnated. I came back for different reasons.’

Morgan nodded and clowned his drink, deciding at the same time it should be
his last. ‘Well, Eric it’s been good talking to you but I’d better get off.’

Eric smiled, ‘A lovely wife at home I expect.’

‘Nope, single but happy.’

Eric looked at Morgan’s suit. ‘Businessman?’

‘Solicitor.’

‘Ah, so you get to see what I’m talking about?’

‘Sometimes. Look, I’m sorry but I’ve got to get off. Do you want another
drink before I go?’

Eric shook his head, ‘No. Thank you. You could do me a small favour
though.’

‘Sure.’

‘Would you walk me to my flat? It’s just round the corner. Might even be on
your way. I’m always a little nervous after dark.’

Morgan resisted the temptation to check his watch. He didn’t have anything to
rush back to. ‘Okay, no problem.’

Eric’s face lit up, ‘Thank you so much. You’re a real gentleman, a dying breed
you might say. They could do with more people like you in heaven.’

Dark Horizons

— 33 —

Morgan smiled, knowing Eric would think otherwise if he knew him a little
better. ‘No problem.’

The two men waved goodbye to the barman as they walked out. It was the last
time he saw either of them.

Eric’s flat was indeed just round the corner.

‘It’s just up here, on the third floor. Thanks for doing this. I’m always a little
nervous. This area was a lot nicer when I was a young boy.’

Morgan shook his head as he stepped over a bundle of rags huddled in the

corner of the stairs, ‘I’m sure it was.’

T expect the politicians have got a name for it. Inner city decay oi something.
‘Probably.’

‘Whatever it is, I wish they'd do something about it. Someone pushed some
used toilet paper through my letterbox yesterday.’

Morgan cringed, ‘Jesus.’

Eric glanced at him.

‘Sorry. I guess that rules me out of heaven.’

Eric smiled and shook his head, ‘Not any more.

‘Phew, that's a relief.’

‘Of course, solicitors are ruled out of a matter of course.’

Morgan laughed, ‘Ah well, perhaps I'll change career.'

‘Probably a good idea. Anyway we’re here. My little home.’

Eric swung open the door to his flat, flicked on the lights and turned back to his
escort. ‘Thanks again Morgan; you're a true gentleman.

‘No problem. No problem at all. You take care, Eric.’

Morgan turned away and headed back to the stairs, debating whethei to stop by
Solo and see if there was anyone he might like to spend the evening with.

‘Morgan! Just a moment. I've got something for you. Just a small thank you tor

indulging an old man.' .

Morgan held up his hands, ‘There's no need. Just look after yourself - that s

enough for me.’

‘Just a moment, honestly it won’t take a second.

Morgan considered making a run for it but decided better ot it. ‘Okay then, but
you really don't have to.’

‘I know, I know. Just come in for a moment and I'll find it for you.’

Morgan walked back to the flat and headed inside. If he’d been asked to
describe In old man's flat he’d have come up with something very similar to Eric's.
Wall to wall threadbare carpets, wallpaper that had been passe in the seventies, a
geriatric television skulking in the corner and a layer of dust you could swim in.

Eric was rummaging around in a room at the back of the flat, I won t be a
minute, it’s in here somewhere. Sit down if you’d like.

Morgan looked at the heavily stained sofa and decided to stand.

The rummaging went on for several minutes and Morgan was looking at a
grimy painting of an angel when Eric came back into the loom.

‘Is it you?', Morgan asked, without turning around.

— 34 —

Dark Horizons

Eric reached in front of the solicitor and sliced a knife across the man’s throat
in one practised arc. He stepped aside as Morgan staggered backwards, clutching
the slash in his throat, a surprised gurgling the only sound he could manage.

"No, it isn’t.’

Morgan’s leg caught the edge of the sofa, the rest of his body needed no further
encouragement and collapsed onto the cushions.

‘Don’t struggle. You’re a good man. A true gentleman. You’ll like Heaven.’

Morgan’s eyes flared as blood gushed around his fingers and realisation seeped
into his rapidly dulling mind.

Eric grinned as he closed the knife. ‘That’s right. We’re on a recruitment
drive.’

Belinda loved the gothic scene, she couldn’t get enough
Of weathered stones, and human bones - and all that kind of stuff.

She changed her name to Cankered Rose, she dyed her hair maroon
And went to live in Whitby with her little pet baboon.

One midnight she went walking up the Abbey steps alone
(The baboon was rather chesty and he had to stay at home)

And Belinda, gazing seawards, saw, with more surprise than fear,

A great storm-beaten sailing ship go smash into West Pier.

So down the steps she hurried, and across the empty street.

The people in the houses heard the patter of her feet.

They heard her run across the pier, they heard her give a cry
And never since has she been seen by any human eye.

Eor when they dared to go and look, the ship had vanished quite.

And there was nothing to be seen but storm and waves and night.

Now every evening when the dusk displaces afternoon
Upon the pier, in hope and fear, there waits a small baboon.

He doesn’t think they’ll bring her back, but just in case they should

He’s got a store of garlic and some
pointy bits of wood.

The moral of this story is writ in
ancient runes:

Steer very clear of vampire ships, and
never trust baboons.

Dark Horizons

— 35 —

the 'fCame Qf ...

Mel Cartagena

Love has had varied physical incarnations through the ages. The cherubic Cupid,
in spite of his godhood, is rendered helpless by his diminutive body, which denies
the possibility that he could physically love the goddess Psyche, an adult female
of averase proportions. Aphrodite, the Greek love goddess, and her Roman
counterpart Venus, while figuring prominently in mythology, use their power m
opposing ends of the love spectrum. While Venus removed Aeneas' spear from
the olive tree and returned it to the warring Roman, Aphrodite promised Paris the
hand of a married woman in exchange for the undisputed accolade of the most
beautiful of goddesses, igniting the Trojan war.

So in a time of cynicism, in a faithless age. Love is born anew.

Love is a man that stands five-foot-ten-inches tall, has light brown hair worn
in a crew-cut, has green eyes, and is missing the top knuckle in the pinky tingei of

his left hand. • ■ u

Love walked out of the Lawrence Public Library, and stopped in front of the

squat, glass-tinted building. He meant to go south along Park sh'eet, until a
disruption in the static air, a shifting of the atmosphere beckoned him. Hs stood
motionless on the wide sidewalk while high school kids and parents went around
him, then started across the street towards the school.

He had never been inside Lawrence High School, but his steps carried him
confidently through an empty hallway, past a room with two security officers, and
up a spiral stairca'se with ornate iron railings to an open, tar-covered door that led
to the roof.

Love's chipped workboots crunched on the crushed gravel as he went to the
east elevation of the building. The teenager leaning against the ledge did not hear
his steps. The wind blew in the opposite direction, taking the sound of Love s
boots that way. Love stopped ten feet from the teenager s back.

‘Hey!' he exclaimed softly so as not to startle the youth.

He did anyway, and the teenager swivelled to face Love, grabbing the ledge
with shaking fingers. ‘Don't come near me! I’ll do it. I'll jump!’ the teenager
threatened.

Love did not answer immediately; he stared openly at the teenager s raw, red
gash on the left side of his face, the skin above and below sinking into a wrinkled,
Twisted trench that reached the back of his head.

Love’s open appraisal of his face upset the boy. He put his head down and

mumbled, ‘What do you want?’

‘How did you get up here?’ Love asked him. ‘Isn t the dooi kept locked after
those two girls jumped together seven months ago?’

The teenager regarded him suspiciously, then answered cautiously, ‘The

— i6 —

Dark Horizons

janitor. He - he thinks I’m his friend. He uses me, because I don’t have any
friends. Thinks I look up to him.’ He chuckled softly, then became serious again.
’He told me how he needs help, but the school won’t hire an assistant for him. So
I offered to help. ’

'That’s pretty clever,’ Love said.

‘Whaf?’ The teenager asked defensively.

'Tricking the janitor to let him trust you with the keys to the door.’

'I didn’t tell you that!’

'No, but I know just the same,’ Love answered. He had moved two steps
closer to the teenager. 'Just like I know you’re suffering, Eddie.’

'How d’you know my name'?’ the teenager asked him, the wariness returning
to his sad brown eyes.’

'I know you, Eddie. I know what it’s like for you. I know of anyone who
needs me, Eddie.’ Love moved closer as he spoke. He was only six feet from
Eddie, who turned his face away, showing him the end of his scar and the fuzz of
dark hair growing around it. 'I didn’t want to touch it,’ he told Love with a
breaking voice. 'I knew it was a bad dog. I could/he7 it. But dad told me not to be
a sissy, and - and I wanted to make him happy. I tried to push him off when he bit
me first, but I couldn’t - I couldn’t...’ he sobbed softly and slid against the inside
ot the ledge until he was sitting on the gravel covering the roof.

'And it’s never been the same for you,’ Love said gently, setting down the
three hardcover books he took from the library and kneeling next to Eddie.

'They won’t let me try for track or nothing,’ Eddie told him, openly weeping.
'And I can run. I’ve timed myself, after practice, when there’s no one in the track.
I’m as good as any of them.’ A sobbing fit wracked his slim frame. Love just held
him.

'I know, I know,’ he told Eddie. 'I know of what the hoys in the baseball
team did, and of the prostitute also, and I don’t care. I’m not here to judge. I’m
here to help.’

'I had to pay her more,’ Eddie said in between sobs. He placed his face
against Love’s shoulder, wetting the green sweater with his tears. Love hugged
him back fiercely. 'I had to give her more money, and she wouldn’t look me in
the eye.’

'I know, I know,’ Love said, taking Eddie’s head in his hands.

'And I didn’t even want to do it,’ Eddie said as .he cried. 'She smelled like
brandy and cigarettes. But I wanted to know what it felt like, 'cause all the guys
talked about it.’ His crying was angry, passionate, a cathartic expiation of self-
hatred.

‘I know Eddie, I know,’ Love cooed. T 1 1 help you.’

Love secured his grip on either side of Eddie’s head, then twisted brutally in
both directions. Eddie’s grip tightened on Love’s upper arms for a second, then he
slumped away. Love set Eddie down on the gravel delicately, then picked up his
books and left. The trance-like state that guided his steps was gone. He was
simply a man on his way home.

Dark Horizons

— 37 —

Love had hands that were small, but rough, calloused from fourteen years as a
construction foreman. He was gruff, but fair in the treatment of his labouieis, and
prided himself in not once in his fourteen years having to fire an employee.

Two years ago, while changing a belt in an industrial strength generator
reserved for nighrwork, he caught his little finger in between gears while trying
to clear a pulley free of coarse particles. He lost the tip of his finger on his left
hand. It was while recovering in the hospital that the fiist manifestation of Love
took place.

He was lying in bed, pleasantly dozing under the influence of the morphine,
his workers having departed an hour earlier when visiting hours ended, when he
felt the shift. The minute change in the air around him that signalled a call for
help of the unusual kind. He sat up in his bed smoothly, and removed the IV unit
from his arm. He dressed in fresh clothes brought to him by one of his visitors,
then went to the elevator. He rode the car five floors up, and got out at the
Intensive Care Unit. He did not question his presence there, simply let himself be
guided seven rooms to his right, to the chamber with the little girl in the bed. She
was a small child, made smaller still by the cancer eating at her lymph nodes and
spreading through her body.

He approached the bed, a small part of him wondering why he was there,
how the morphine-induced stupor had vanished so quickly. The girl in the bed
breathed shallowly, laboriously.

‘Hello,’ Love said, very softly. The girl’s eyes opened, light-blue and glazed.
She made as it to answer, but the oxygen tube in her month garbled her words.
Love reached over and removed the adhesive strips holding it in place and
extracted the tube from her mouth.

‘What was that?’ he asked her after her month was free of restrictions.

‘I said hi,' she responded weakly. ‘You’re not supposed to take that off,’ she
added, and licked her lips dryly. ‘It helps me to breathe,’ she admonished him.
‘But thanks anyway.'

‘You’re welcome, Tammy,’ Love said.

‘How do you know my name'?’ the girl asked him. She sighed deeply and
closed her eyes.

■I just know,' he told her, and it was the truth. The ripple in the air that
brouaht him to her conveyed the information that he was now sharing with her.
One instant he did not know of her, the next one he did. ‘Where’s your mom'?’

‘She went to get me a soda,’ Tammy told him. ‘Are you a friend of my

mom'?'

‘No, I’m your friend. How do you feel about al 1 this, Tammy'?’ Love asked
and gestured at the machinery at the opposite side of the bed.

The girl made a small movement with her bony shoulders, barely perceptible
under the hospital sheet. ‘Tired,' she answered.

‘What does your mom say'?’

She siahed again. ‘Nothing. She just stares at the wall and ciies when she
thinks I’m sleeping and says I'm going to be okay when I m awake.

— 38 —

Dark Horizons

’And what do the doctors say?’

’They just act nice and keep telling me I’m looking better all the time.’

'And what do you think?’ Love leaned close to her. Her voice was growing
fainter with each answer.

She thought for a few seconds before replying. 'They’re lying,’ she said, her
voice sounding firmer this tine. 'I used to draw. In my class - me and three other
girls. We got picked and put in a special class. We were doing a mural at our
school, and we were going to have some paintings put on show in the library, but
then I started feeling tired all the time...’ She trailed off in her narrative and
sighed again. 'I want to draw again.’

'Why don’ t you?’

'I can’t feel my hands,’ she said, her tiny voice breaking. 'I know they’re
there, I just can’t feel them.’

'Who are you?’ A female voice demanded from behind Love and Tammy.
He turned and saw a woman with dirty blond hair, generous of figure. A woman
that would be considered attractive under better circumstances. She was holding a
can of Welch’s grape soda in her right hand and regarded Love with open
suspicion.

‘What are you doing in my daughter’s room?’

'I am a friend, ma’am,’ he told her in a placating tone, sensing that she, more
than her child, was the cause for the shifting of the atmosphere. She was the one
in need of help. ‘I’m here because you need help.’

‘I need for you to get the hell out of here before I call hospital security,’ she
said, moving to her daughter’s bed while Love backed away from her.

"I assure you ma’am, I mean no harm to you or your girl. But you need to
listen to your child; she has something to tell you.’

‘Mister, I’m not going to tell you again,’ the woman said, reaching for the
intercom speaker. ‘Get the hell out of — ’,

‘Mom,’ Tammy called to her, her voice soft but amazingly firm.

Her mother stopped shouting and bent near her daughter’s face. ‘Yes baby?’

‘It’s okay,’ Tammy told her. ‘He was leaving, mom.’

‘Honey, you’re not supposed to be without your breathing aid,’ she told
Tammy, reaching for the tube. The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t want it anymore,
mom,’ she said.

‘Ma’am, listen to your daughter, not the doctors. She has something
important to tell you,’ Love said, then walked out of the room as silently as he
had entered.

And the child and her mother talked, and the mother cried during the most
adult conversation she ever had with her twelve-year old daughter, but she
understood her pain, and the futility of keeping her attached to machines that
would not bring back the child she once knew. She unhooked the life support and
monitoring systems from her daughter, and attached them to herself, and held her
daughter’s hand until she stopped breathing, then reattached the instruments onto
the dead girl.

Dark Horizons

— 39 —

And when the doctor on call rushed into find a machine reading a flatline and
a crying woman, her never suspected her tears were of relief tor her and the child
that had been her daughter.

Love was born Benjamin Duanza Gostello thirty-eight years ago to Cecilio
Duanza and Anette Costello. He kept that name until one month after visiting the
little girl. It was the episode that convinced him unconditionally that he was Love.

He was walking home after stopping by the deli three blocks from his house.
He had a roast beef sandwich in one hand and a root beer in the other, when his
jacket made light contact with the robe of Father Carmine. He still thought of
himself as Benjamin as he reeled from the invisible sparks resulting from the
contact between the two fabrics.

Father Carmine looked at him curiously. ‘Are you all right, sir?' he asked
Benjamin, hands deep in the pockets of his robe.

Benjamin shook his head briefly, supporting himself against a parked car. He
nodded at the priest, who immediately turned and went on his way. Benjamin
stared at the tall, gaunt figure as it walked another block and went up the steps of
St. Simon church. Benjamin stood on the sidewalk in the chill of early spring,
replaying what invaded his mind during his brief contact with the pieachei s
black cloth. Garish pictures of naked children entrusted to the holy man by busy,
trusting mothers. Boys defiled in the church basement by a crippled soul that
loathed itself but could not control its twisted longing. Benjamin had a last image,
one that depicted clearly the priest fondling himself under the robe, and the
images of children stimulating the process, and immediately lost his appetite.

"He felt the shift in the atmosphere again, the silent scream for help, and the
inner being that took control of his steps. Hs went home, and after taking a bottle
of pills from his medicine cabinet, walked back to St. Simon, wheie he found
Father Carmine on his knees, his brow furrowed with devotion and guilt.

‘It's no use father,' Benjamin said, drawing the holy man out of his self-
induced reverie, ‘He is not listening, but I am.

‘Confession hours are during the day, sir,’ Father Carmine replied, trying not
to act startled, ignoring everything Benjamin told him.

‘I'm trying to help you, father. He won't come, won't answer you. I am here
- and I know. Let me help you,’ Benjamin pleaded.

‘Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but if you don't make sense
soon I'll have to ask you to leave before I call the police.’

‘Father, how long do you think you can go on doing this before one of those

children breaks?’

Carmine became red-faced; his long body shook with repressed rage, and he
seemed on the verge of attacking Benjamin. ‘Sir, tor the last time, leave this
house of god before I call the police.’

'Father,' Benjamin began patiently, ‘I saw everything. I know that Cody is
reachins his limit. He's doing badly in school, and doesn t play little league
anymore. His parents are questioning him right now as we speak. Do you really

— 40 —

Dark Horizons

want to plead denial when they come for you'?’

'How..'?’ Carmine formed a question that did not reach his grim lips. ‘How
do you...'?’

'You showed me, Father,’ Benjamin explained. ‘I saw it in you - it’s in your
head.’

Carmine’s body quivered for a long time before he collapsed on a nearby
pew, assuming the position he was in when Benjamin arrived. ’Dear Lord, I can’t
help myself!’ he confessed to the empty church.

'I know,’ Benjamin assured him. ‘I’m here to help.’ He walked to where
Carmine was kneeling and sat on the bench behind the pew, waiting for Carmine
to recover.

‘But who — ’ Carmine said, then amended ‘What in God’s name are you'?’

He hesitated for a brief moment. ‘I am Love,’ he answered, then reached in
the inner pocket of his jacket, took out the pills, and placed them on the varnished
headboard of the pew. 'I used these when I was recovering from my accident,’
Love told the holy man, absently flexing the fingers of his left hand. ‘I won’t need
them anymore. They’re yours if you wish to use them.’ Then Love got up from
the bench and left the church and the priest to his personal demons.

Later that night, under the gentle coaxing from his parents, eight-year old
Cody Samas admitted to being touched by Father Carmine after Sunday school
and during biblical group outings. Two days later, when his parents formally
pressed charges against the holy man, four other parents had come forward,
increasing the list of molestation charges against the influential and respected
priest. Four days later, when police officers came to arrest Carmine, they found
him sitting in his private study, three days dead, with an empty bottle of Vicodin
by his desk.

And Love embarked on a mile of compassion, never questioning his sudden
decision to resign his job of fourteen years, never wondering why he felt no
hunger anymore, never bothering to remember when was the last time he sat
down for a meal. He felt nourished every time he assisted those who could not
reach decisions unaided, could not put an end to their pain unassisted. He went
on his winding mile, never caring for the trail he created and which the police
were following. He never saw the need to cover his steps or destroy evidence. He
was not committing a crime. He was answering a call for help. He was Love
unconditional.

The end of Love’s twisted mile brought him to the desk of Amanda Soren,
independent investor. Love found her contemplating her position between an
affair with a married man and an emotionally abusive boyfriend, plus the odd
angle of having caused a break up between a former girlfriend and her man. The
compulsive need to own what she couldn’t have - only to find she didn’t want it
after all - coupled with an alcohol haze, rendered her helpless to take some form
of direct action.

Dark Horizons

— 41 —

It was at this juncture that Love, the police and Amanda Soren collided. Four
officers responding to an APB describing Love were in the same commercial
building Amanda worked out of. On a hunch they followed the suspect and
waited, until Amanda's screams for help roused them into action.

‘Freeze!’ Officer Tunney warned, drawing his service revolver at Love, the
other three officers doing likewise. Love was at the other side of the desk,
attempting to strangle Amanda Soren.

He tried to reason with the police officers. ‘I’m only trying to help, otticer.
Believe me, this is what she wants.’

‘Back away from her, Mr Costello! We have evidence that you assisted in the
suicide of Father Carmine and the death of Eddie Trammel’

‘You don’t understand officer,’ Love said patiently, his hands loosely
wrapped around her neck, tightly enough that she couldn’t get away. ‘This way
it’l 1 look like her boyfriend did it. She’ll be out of the picture. No one else has to
suffer,’ He gave them a pleading look. ‘Don’t you see'? It 11 all work out in the
end.’

Officer Tunney drew back the hammer of the revolver, the clicking sound
incredibly loud in the acoustically-proofed office. He reflected that it was the first
time in seven years of service that he d drawn on a suspect. For the last time, Mi
Costello, let the woman go and back away. Save us al I some trouble.

While Tunney attempted to defuse the situation, Amanda contemplated what
Love said, and although such thoughts had been on her mind, the actual reality of
the situation made her reconsider, allowing time for her cowardly nature to
reassert itself. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction caused by the
sound of the revolver being cocked, she turned her body towards Love, and
shoved her knee at his groin. When he let her go, she pushed herself away with
her mid-heel pumps, rolling away on her chair. Love recovered and went after
her, ignoring officer Tunney’s last warning.

‘Freeze, Mr Costello! Freeze, I said!’

Love never listensd, and was shot ten times between all officers.

Officer Tunney went to Amanda, asking her if she was all right, while the
others administered first aid and called for an ambulance. ‘You’ll be okay, Ms
Soren,’ he reassured her, sharply aware of her feminine attributes as he rubbed her
back. ‘You’re safe now, Ms Soren. He can’t hurt you any more. You’re safe.
You’re safe.’

The monotonous consolation continued while she sat on the floor and
observed the spreading pool of blood under Love s body, deeply staining the
peach carpet covering the floor.

Love was declared Dead On Arrival of massive internal Injuries and loss of
blood, while Amanda found herself riding a wave of attention that prompted
certain reporters to investigate her life more closely, bringing to light the love
triangle of which she was the base. Because Love was not allowed to run its
course, and because Amanda could not face her boyfriend one more day, the man
she was forcing to commit adultery, nor the attacks of the press, she diove her

— 42 —

Dark Horizons

Lexus off a deep ravine in a drunken stupor.

Because the married man truly loved her, in spite of Amanda’s flat refusal to
let him proceed with a divorce, he shot himself in his studio, leaving behind
several million in assorted stocks and bonds to fend for itself.

Because Amanda’s boyfriend had been siphoning small amounts of money
from her clients, and because there was no one left to manage the dwindling
fortune of the married man, major shifts were felt in the stock market, hundreds of
businesses across the country were forced to file for chapter 1 1 bankruptcy, and
millions of small investors saw their portfolios shrink to nothing is a matter of
days. The larger repercussions were explained by financial analysts as an unusual
economical vacuum in a small but essential sector of the general wealth.

It was never considered that the true cause was a lack of Love.

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Angela Rigby

It was daffodil time and the bright yellow heads leaned forward from the earth
beneath branchy trees. Debbie swung on the front gate, her small feet wedged
on the lower cross bar and her head just reaching over the top. She banged the
gate backwards and forwards against its post and sang:

‘Fm four - Fm a whole four,’ - the latter point being important since she
had been offended by Auntie May saying she was four and a half. She wasn't a

She was waiting for Daddy. His tall figure dressed in army uniform would
soon appear at the end of the road and come marching towards her waving, and
she would wave back. She wasn't allowed to open the gate to run out to meet
him but had to wait until he reached her when he would swing her up in the air
and she would squeeze her arms tightly round his neck, rubbing hei cheek
against the rough material of his greatcoat - which she knew was called khaki
because everyone said so, but which she called green. They would then go the
few yards up the front path to where Mummy stood at the front door and she too
would join in the hug.

It was a long wait and bedtime came with no sign of Daddy. Mummy
picked her up and carried her in.

T want to wait up for Daddy.’

•You can stay up a little while longer. I expect he missed his bus and will
come on the next one.’

In her nightie and woolly dressing gown with the D on its pocket, Debbie
stood on the staircase landing and looked out of the window to see him coming,
but it got dark and finally Mummy carried her up to bed. She had clung on to
the windowsill.

‘I want to see Daddy.’

Tf you’re awake when he comes I'll come and get you.’

Debbie looked over Mummy’s shoulder at the image ot herself in the hall
mirror - a little girl with fair plaits tied with pink ribbons. She was tucked into
bed.

■Now Daddy will want to see a happy smiling girl. He’ll soon be home.

She went to sleep.

There was no Daddy in the morning and Mummy was on the phone. Auntie
May came round. Debbie wanted to swing on the gate again hut they kept her
indoors. It was afternoon when two men came in army uniforms, and she could
hear Mummy crying in the sitting room.

"Where’s Daddy'?’ she asked Auntie May.

— 44 —

Dark Horizons

They were sitting at the kitchen table and Debbie could see that auntie had
been crying as well.

"Daddy’s not coming home. He’s gone to live with Jesus,’

"Why"? He lives with us,’

"Sometimes people have to go and live with Jesus. They’re happy with him
and they still go on caring about us.’

Corporal Jason Hall stood alone on the open moorland watching the new
recruits in the distance. It was an ordinary uncomplicated exercise and he
checked his watch to see how much longer it might be before they could all
return to barracks. Then it would be his weekend leave to see Kate and Debbie.
The men were getting more distant and he strained his eyes after them. No one
apparently was coming in his direction, and he noted a slight mist was rising.
He stepped forward to start to close the gap. It was an uneven piece of ground
and he fell awkwardly doubling his foot under him.

When he came round the mist was intense. There was a pain in one foot
and a worse one in his head. He tried to lift himself on his elbows and fell back
again. It was getting dark and very cold. Pain and shock brought on bouts of
shivering. He became delirious - he was in the kitchen with Debbie on his knee
and Kate was making him a hot cup of tea.

"Kate,’ he called. ’Kate.’ He was drifting off when she came - bending
over him so that he could just make out her features.

Debbie was deeply angry with Daddy for going off and living with Jesus when
he ought to have stayed with her and Mummy, and some of the anger remained
even as she grew up and was told the whole story. When he was found, after
search parties had spent the night in near impossible conditions, he had been
dead for less than half an hour - finally succumbing to cold, exposure and the
effects of shock. As a sixteen year old, Debbie read the newspaper cuttings that
reported the findings of the inquest. It was felt that Corporal Hall had not made
it absolutely clear where he would be and he seemed to have allowed too great a
distance to build up between himself and his troops. In normal conditions it
wouldn’t have mattered and he could easily have re-joined them. His fall
followed by the unexpected weather conditions had been pure bad luck. The
post mortem revealed a broken ankle and a hair line fracture of the skull that
would have caused severe concussion. It appeared that as he fell his head had
struck against a small outcrop of rock. The fracture would have healed within a
short space of time had he survived. The verdict was accidental death.

She lived with her mother and they had the companionship of her
grandparents and Auntie May. The newspaper cuttings were packed away in a
box in the attic and the photograph of a young soldier with his pretty bride
became the main image of her father. She looked closely at it sometimes, trying
to remember his features, but her own memories were fading. She would think
of what it must have been like for him during that last night - of whether he had

Dark Horizons

— 45 —

thought of her as he lay there and had wanted her and her mother to he with
him.^ She visited his grave with flowers but it wasn’t enough. It wasn t a
sufficient goodbye. She was in her twenties and had finished with university
and her geography degree when she decided that she had to do what he must
have wanted. She had to go out and look for him.

It was early in the morning when she set out from the hostel across the springy
heather and green grass of the moors. It wasn't spring as it had been then.
There were skylarks overhead and some partridges clattered up as she walked.
She had an ordnance survey map and a rough idea of the area she was looking
for. A small bunch of summer flowers was attached to her backpack and with
it a note that read. Dear Daddx. I'm soriy I wasn't here for you. but I came as
soon as I could. Love xou always. Debbie. She would lay it down somewhere
near where he must have been. There was no sign of any farms or houses now
- just the horizon around her with a breeze rattling against the papery heather.
She stood still and an immense sense of loss and grief hit her as it never had
before.

‘Daddy/ she called. ‘Daddy, I'm here.'

There was no sound except for the skylarks overhead. A cloud was coming
down over the moor. She shaded her eyes and looked towards it, and decided
she would have to move. Visibility decreased fast as she walked and she took
out her compass for direction. It was getting cold.

There was a voice somewhere. She stopped and listened. Hello.’ She
moved slowly and carefully. There had been a few distant figures when she
started out but the mist was so dense now that it would be impossible to detect
the direction of the sound. She went on and reached a slight depression in the
sround. A young man lay there - presumably just out of sight from anyone
walking on level ground. He was in army uniform and looked very pale. He

was barely conscious. .

‘It's all right,' she said. She swung her backpack down, remembering all
the things her father must have needed and which could have saved his life.
She found a folded groundsheet attached to the knapsack that was still stiapped
to him. She rolled him on to his side carefully, undid the buckles and then
wrapped the groundsheet over him. She unfolded her space blanket and
wrapped it round herself and then broke up bits of mint cake - ot which the
packet assured her it had been eaten at the top of Mount Everest, and coaxed
tiny fragments into his mouth. She managed to lift his shoulders and tipped a
little hot tea from her tlask into his mouth. He moaned. Then she lay down
with her arms round him. It was essential she knew not to leave him.

‘We'll keep warm together,' she said. ‘Until the mist clears. It shouldn t be
long. I told them at the hostel where I was going. If it gets late, they 11 start

looking.' . , • u A

It grew cold and dark and she crumbled more mint cake into his mouth and

ate some herself. She made the tea last throughout the night in small sips. It

— 46 —

Dark Horizons

was getting light when she heard voices at some distance.

‘We’re here,’ she called. ‘We’re here...’ Visibility was still only a few
yards. She got up. It was a risk but she had to meet them. She hugged the
space blanket around herself and stepped out into the mist.

Debbie swung on the front gate watching as the car that was bringing Daddy
home drew up. Auntie May meanly caught her hand to stop her rushing out to
him. She had to be patient as Mummy helped him out onto the pavement. He
stood up on his crutches - one big plastered foot lifted off the ground.

‘I can’t pick you up, Deb,’ he said. ‘I haven’t a spare arm.’

They all sat at the kitchen table and Daddy had a hot cup of tea while she
snuggled up to him.

‘I thought I was finished,’ he said. ’All I could think of, Kate, was you and
Debbie. Somehow I must have got the ground sheet out and I’d eaten some
mint cake. And then I thought you came and lay down beside me and we kept
warm together.’

3SF

Science Fiction
Speculative Fiction
Strange Facts

Launched October 2002
Published six times a year
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7 Lothian Gardens (GFL),
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Tel: 0141-589-1771
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Dark Horizons

— 47 —

David J Howe

There is something at the bottom of my garden. Now I know all the stories and I
know all the myths. They’re meant to be fairies, but if they are, they're not out of
any children’s bedtime story.

So what happened, you ask. Why am I talking about fairies? Well it s partly
to explain. That’s if anyone actually believes me. If anyone cares enough to listen.

And why should they. I still consider myself a reasonably attractive woman
of twenty-five years. I can just see the thoughts rushing across your face as you
look at me. You don’t know whether I’m a raving nutter, or a publicity-seeker, or
something else entirely.

Let me try and explain. Amazing as it may sound, it started only yesterday.

It was Saturday, if today is Sunday, and I think it is, so it must have been
Saturday. I was out in my garden as usual for the weekend, checking the garden
pond, seeing if the frogs and toads were still thrashing about in the water, doing
what' frogs and toads do in the spring. My fish idly swam about, pretending to
ignore the frogs, and the black water-boatmen skittered across the surface looking
for food. I picked a few good daffodils which had bowed their heads to the giass
overnight, intending to put them in a vase once indoors. My meandering in the
garden took me to the bottom, where a large and ancient oak tree stands twisted
and knurled. When I was a kid, I used to play in its branches, and my dad once
built a swing up on one of the higher boughs. I can still remember him pushing
me higher and higher as the sunshine dappled my face and dress with patterns of

light filtered through the leaves.

At the base of the tree is a bole, a knotty, lumpy area
which makes the old tree look as though it is wearing a
legwarmer, or so I always thought. Around the tree no
grass would ever grow. We tried one year to plant some.
Raking the earth to smooth and break it up, scattering
grass seeds, and then watering the area every day.
Nothing. Perhaps I should have thought that this was
strange, but I didn’t. I didn t even think it was odd that the
grass stopped in a neat circle around the tree, about three
feet from the trunk. I suspect that I thought it was just
some nature thing — maybe the tree roots sucked all the
moisture from around the tree making it impossible for
other plants to grow there.

This morning, however, I noticed that the bole had a
split in it.

— 48 —

Dark Horizons

As I love that tree, I stooped to look closer. There was a break in the bark
about an inch across at its widest. It was seeping some whitish liquid and within
the split I could see something glinting. I crouched down and looked closer.

To my amazement, there then clambered from the hole a tiny person.

No. Honestly. Swear on my life. It was a small person with wings.

They made their way out of the slit in the bole, and sat preening their delicate
wings, which twinkled and sparkled in the shifting patterns of sunlight. I crouched
there silently, not quite believing what I was seeing, I blinked, I remember,
several times, but every time I opened my eyes, this little green-tinted person was
still there, gently rubbing its wings with his hands, rather like a cat cleaning its
fur.

Then another head emerged from the bole, and a second little figure joined
the first. This one was a reddish hue, and it too sat and started unfurling gossamer
wings from its back.

They wore no clothes these creatures, and their tiny bodies were shifting and
changing hue as the sun hit them. A little like a cuttlefish can change its colours
as it swims along. Lightening swift, pulsing and shifting the whole time.

As I watched, the first creature finished tending to its wings and looked up
suddenly, as if seeing me watching for the first time. With a flicker, it was
airborne, and, like a humming bird or a hover fly, was hanging in front of my
face.

I think I must have smiled with delight as it flitted to and fro, glinting wings a
blur on its back, while its body flushed purple and green.

It hovered closer to the ground, and by instinct I raised my left hand - the one
which was not clutching a posy of daffodils. Holding my hand out flat, the fairy
hovered closer, peering at my large and ungainly fingers. Then, it settled gently
on my palm, its feet barely felt.

I could not believe this. There was I, sitting on my haunches in a sunny
garden, under an aged tree, with a real live fairy standing on the palm of my hand.

Just then the second creature appeared in the air by my head. It too flitted
down to my hand and joined the other standing there. I just watched them in a
daze.

The first creature held out its hand to the second and they clasped their own
tiny fingers together.

Then, in unison, they bent down and bit me.

I think I screamed and frantically shook my hand in the air to try and
dislodge them. They had both sunk their tiny needle-sharp teeth into the fleshy
area at the base of my thumb, and were hanging on for dear life. I shook my hand
even harder and watched with satisfaction as one of the creatures lost its grip and
flew off to hit the tree-trunk with an audible slap. The other let go on its own and
hovered momentarily, looking at me with its head cocked to one side, before
Hying to its partner which was caught in the bark on the tree.

I stood up and examined my hand, which was now throbbing painfully. At
the base of my thumb were two sets of circular marks. Both in perfect rings about

Dark Horizons

— 49 —

half a centimetre across, and both consisting ot seven red pinprick points.

Looking back to the tree, where my two attackers were now nowhere to be
seen, I hurried back up the garden to the kitchen, where I doused a cotton wool
pad with TCP and pressed it against the painful punctures. Further investigation
showed that gently squeezing the bitten area produced a milky white fluid from
the pin pricks and shooting pains up my arm which made my head spin
alarmingly.

I headed for the telephone, Intending at that point to phone my doctor to
explain that I had been bitten ... but then hesitated. How could I possibly tell him
what had caused the marks. Fairies? He’d never believe that for one moment.

I looked again at my left hand which was now cradled in my right. The marks
had become puffy and raised from the surface, and my whole arm was now
starting to throb. I went to pick up the telephone, but found that my arm was now
aching so much, and my head was starting to spin, that I couldn’t concentrate on
anything, let alone finding the number and dialling the doctor.

So I went back out into the garden.

My hand was not a pretty sight. I think it was after about ten minutes that the
skin started to stretch and change colour. The reds and oranges were vibrant, but
as I watched, I could see other colours blossoming and blooming under my skin:
purple and vermilion and green. It stopped hurting after about twenty minutes, but
then other things started to happen.

Take my stomach for example. I used to be a size eight, but my waist started
to stretch to fill my jeans. And there was movement too. Ripples under the skin,
small lumps sliding backwards and forwards. I tried pressing them, but they just
slid out of the way.

I can see you’re shaking your head. Perhaps you don't believe me. Perhaps
you think you’ve come to the wrong house.

As I stood in my beautiful garden, with my once beautiful figure bulging, I
found that I could see colours, light and movement that I had otherwise missed.
Everything seemed so alive. Everything, that is, except me. When I looked down
at my swollen and distended arm all I could now see was black, and as my jeans
started to tear with the pressure, I could see my once-shapely legs - the ones I
could halt a line of traffic with just by stopping in the street to adjust my skirt -
swelling and bloating along with the rest of my body.

But it didn’t hurt. I was just dizzy and giddy, and everything ached.

I remember blinking, and in the instant my eyes were closed, the light
changed. It was moving like treacle, slowing down somehow. I could see shapes
and colours in the grass, and with a jolt I realised that the two small fairy
creatures were coming back. I tried to head back to the house, but found that my
feet would not move. I was too tired, bloated, swollen and aching to be able to
stagger anywhere.

The two creatures came closer, and they were moving a lot more slowly than
they had been before. They were almost graceful and stately as they fluttered their
bright wings and flew up towards my head. They landed on my shoulders, and I

— 50 —

Dark Horizons

found that I could not move my head to see where they had gone. Then, the
aching subsided, and I felt two gentle pin-pricks on my neck, one on either side. I
felt my eyes closing as a sense of great lethargy overtook me, and I slowly, oh so
slowly, moved my arms up to try and brush the creatures away.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw you there. I know you think that there’s
something wrong as you looked concerned as you slowly stooped to pick up the
remains of my jeans. Now you’re looking at me. Studying me. But you haven’t
answered me yet, or made any comment regarding my story.

What is it? Why are you gently rubbing my arm with your hand. Does the
roughness of my skin worry you?

You look worried. I can see you frown as you turn and slowly walk to the
house. No. Don’t go. It’s me. Can’t you hear me? Can’t you see me?

Why won’t my arms move? It’s as though they’re locked in place above my
head. I can just glimpse them out of the corner of my eye. But they’re brown. It’s
not skin at all. It’s bark. Why are my arms covered with bark?

I close my eyes again, and feel a tear gently run down my trunk. I cannot
move, but the sun is pleasant enough. The ground beneath me is grassy, but soon
a bare ring of earth will start to surround me. The sun will dapple the ground
around me as I stand here, the light filtering through my leaves.

I’m not hungry. Not thirsty. I don’t ache any more. I can watch my beautiful
garden grow up around me. I can watch the fairies as they flit about. See the frogs
and toads in the pond.

My garden is my life, and I feel
that soon I’ll be bringing more life
into my garden, as I can sense a bole
starting to gather around my feet.

There is something at the
bottom of my garden. Now I know
all the stories and I know all the
myths ... and I think that just maybe
I now know where fairies come
from.

Dark Horizons

— 51 —

There is a group of people who
know all the latest publishing news
and gossip.

They enjoy the very best in fiction
from some of the hottest new
talents around.

They can read articles by and
about their favourite authors and
know in advance when those
authors’ books are being published.

These people belong to the British
Fantasy Society

The BFS publishes a regular Newsletter as well as magazines containing
fantasy and horror fiction, speculative articles, reviews, interviews,
artwork, comment and much more. There are also special
one-off publications, such as the World Fantasy Award nominated
Manitou Man by Graham Masterton, a collection of pieces specially
written for the BFS by Tom Holt and a book of stories based in the world Oj
the Channel 5 TV series Urban Gothic

Membership of the British Fantasy Society is open to everyone.

You can join via the BFS web site, or send monies payable to The British
Fantasy Society with your name and address to: The BFS Secretary,
201 Reddish Road, Stockport SK5 7HR

Annual Membership: £25 UK. £30 Europe.

£40 everywhere else in the world
The BFS reseires the right to raise membership fees. Should the
fee change, applicants for membership will be advised.

The British Fantasy Society
www.britishfantasvsocietv.org.uk
World Fantasy Award Winner in 1999

— 52 — Dark Horizons

© Wayne Burns

SAINT OR SINNER?

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